The windfall : a novel

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By CHARLES EGBERT CRADDOCK

THE BUSHWACKERS
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THE WINDFALL

THE WINDFALL

A Novel

By CHARLES EGBERT CRADDOCK

Author of

The Bushwhackers," "The Prophet of the Great Smoky
Mountains," "The Amulet," "A Spectre of Power,"
"In the Stranger- People's Country," etc.

NEW YORK

DUFFIELD & COMPANY
1907

COPYRIGHT, 1907,

BY DUFFIELD & COMPANY

Published, March, 190?

THE WINDFALL

CHAPTER I

DESPITE his buoyant optimism Hilary
Lloyd could but quail as he looked about
him. The vast uninhabited heights of
the encompassing Great Smoky Mountains, green,
purple and bronze, seeming to his theatrical sense
magnificently posed against the turquoise back-
ground of further ranges, glimpsed through clifty
defiles and almost touching the differing translu-
cent blue of the sapphire sky; the river, crag-
bound, crystal-clear, with an arrowy swiftness; the
forest, dense beyond any computation, gigantic of
growths, redundantly rich of foliage, and gorgeous
with autumnal tints — all were as revelations .to his
half-stunned mind. He had never dreamed of
the natural wealth, the splendid extent, the pic-
turesque values of this region. His imagination
flagged, failed. He was sensible of the strain
upon his receptivity to compass the transcendent
reality. But whence, amidst these primeval splen-
dours, should materialise the patrons of his little
street fair? Its flimsy booths were already rising
about the stony expanse of the public square of the
town of Colbury, not, in stereotyped phrase, like
magic, but with all the laborious accompaniments
of hammers and saws, the straining of muscles and

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The Windfall

patience, the expenditure of profanity and per-
spiration, and the sound of loud, raucous voices.
The tents reluctantly spread their mushroom-like
contour, now and again suddenly collapsing from
awkward handling or inadequate aid. The man-
ager looked at the few humble toilers with a pre-
scient pang. To be stranded here, on the utter-
most confines of civilisation, seemed a disaster
indeed of direful menace. He realised his friend's
impressions and could have voiced in unison the
exact phrase as a heavy fellow of medium height,
arrayed in a ready-made suit of a loud plaid,
slouched up with his hands in his pockets, and
chewing a straw.

" Well, partner, weVe done it again ! " he said,
not without the accents of reproach.

Lloyd obviously flinched at the tone, and his
face flushed. It was of a singularly perfect con-
tour and chiselling, according to the canons of art,
and in its large nobility of expression it might have
served, and possibly had, as a model for an artist's
realisation of some high ideal. But there was a
most mundane anxiety in his luminous eyes, darkly
blue and long-lashed, and the alertness with which
they eagerly surveyed the meagre festival prepara-
tions gave an accent of the ludicrous to his fine
facial suggestions. He was like a man playing
the role of a prince, unstaged, on the bare side-
walk, and his utter unconsciousness and indifference
to the effect of his remarkable appearance added to
its impressiveness. His hair was fine and light

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The Windfall

brown in tint, and it shone like silk as he lifted his
straw hat and wearily mopped his brow with his
handkerchief. He was young, twenty-five per-
haps, and very fair of complexion, and the delicate
texture of his skin allowed the fluctuating flush of
annoyance visibly to come and go in his cheek.
He was something more than of medium height,
although not notably tall; he was very sym-
metrically put together, and, while slight and ele-
gant, his movements showed intimations of mus-
cular strength and a swift deftness that implied
some special athletic training.

He presently gathered his faculties together and
with a desperate courage affected to see naught
amiss. " Why, we knew that it was only a coun-
try town, Haxon," he remonstrated.

Haxon pushed his wide-brimmed imitation
Panama hat on the back of his head, showing in full
relief his round red face, beaded with perspiration.
He lifted one plump hand with an accusatory ges-
ture toward the infinite stretch of the lonely moun-
tains, and then turned melancholy eyes toward
Lloyd.

" Why," Lloyd responded, " what is the matter
with the mountains, Hax ? I haven't got anything
against 'em."

Haxon shook his head dolorously. " A good
old country to walk in," he observed, tragically.

Lloyd affected surprise. " Cheese it ! " he
cried, contemptuously. " With a week to show
— we're not stranded yetl "

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The Windfall

Haxon's round head wagged to and fro un-
convinced. * That railroad agent got us good,
HiFry," he opined didactically. ;< We have got
time enough to show all right — but nothing to
show to."

In truth the prospect was not alluring from a
utilitarian point of view. The little brick court-
house, the most considerable edifice in the town,
stood in a, plot of blue grass, surrounded by a fence
of palings, and beyond the paved square without
were enough small two-story shops to suggest the
intent of the future when the intervals should be
built in and the quadrangle complete. To the
west the scattered dwellings straggled away along
the hilly main street, with here and there a few
cottages built on intersecting roadways, which
should hereafter develop into cross-streets. But
the temple of justice, the stores and the residences
were none of them new, and barring a gleam of
fresh paint now and again from some cottage out
on the hilly reaches of the thoroughfare the town
was much as it had been for years, and would be
for years to come. There was a wonderful lack
of foliage. A few ancient oaks stood in the court-
house yard, and the trellises of vines and low
boughs in gardens betokened fruit culture, but along
the streets the idea of improvement seemed to
find its earliest municipal exposition in laying the
axe to the root of every forest tree that had spread
its boughs for centuries above the lush spaces now
shorn close to give the town room to expand. The

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The Windfall

landscape, steeped in splendid colour, of infinite
vastness, of loftiest heroic suggestion and most
poetic appeal, had wrought a surfeit of beauty in
the sordid little town, and here, held in the heart
of a most majestic expression of nature, there
was naught to intimate the contiguity of the
heights and the forests save the rare pure air and
the fragrance of the balsam fir.

The tranquillity of the sunshine, the bland,
suave atmosphere, the benignant breath of woods
and waters seemed to impart their languorous
lethargy to the inhabitants as well. There was
not the frenzied interest in a new project of what-
ever sort that is the concomitant of enterprise in
a live town. The merchants, the clerks, the few
lawyers, and the officials of the courthouse noticed
with only an episodical attention the preparations
to get under way the first street fair which had ever
shown its attractions to the denizens of Colbury.

This attitude piqued the curiosity of Lloyd. It
nettled and unnerved him. As it fell under his
observation in different ways it partook of the na-
ture of those who manifested it. Now it inti-
mated a sort of quizzical contempt, for there is
a class of rural wights, who preserve the bucolic
species still, always permeated with a disdain of
progress, and a distrust of whatever is new to their
limited experience. Now it was the outspoken
prophecy of disaster.

" Some fools may leave thar harvests ter waggon
down from the coves ter see yer show," a citizen

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The Windfall

suggested. " But a quarter of an eye will do the
business, accordin' ter my way o' thinkin'. Ye
air goin' ter bide hyar a week, they tell me. Why,
man, the bigges' circus I ever see jes' showed
fur one evenin', then tucked up its tent an'
marched."

"Well, that ain't the style for street fairs,"
Lloyd explained. " This is a different sort of
thing."

" It ts, — it'i'j, for sure, stranger."

Though enigmatically expressed, the acquies-
cence was distinctly uncomplimentary, and Lloyd
dropped the topic. He had not come here to ex-
hibit skill in debate, he said to himself, but to
conduct a street fair. This, it was evident, would
tax his powers. The manager was beginning to
realise that he had been victimised in a certain
sort by the wily representations of a railroad agent
and the summer " cut-rates " in coming to this re-
mote section. The merchants' evident lack of
expectation of reaping the golden reward of a
" big crowd in town " had a damping effect on the
already drooping spirits of the showman. By
way of steadying his nerve Lloyd sought reassur-
ance in verifying some of the lures which had led
him hither. In the office of the county court clerk,
a brick-paved, white-washed apartment in the court-
house, he paid the State and county privilege tax
on the show, and after he had taken out his license
to exhibit, he courteously presented the officials with
free passes to all the attractions.

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The Windfall

" I hope you will do well," said the clerk in a
tone of condolence.

" I hope so, indeed," returned Lloyd, thinking
of the sum named in the tax-receipt. " We expect
a good crowd. We have been well advertised
throughout the country."

The clerk felt that he had no call to seem
optimistic in other men's affairs to the jeopardy of
his own soul. He left lying to more amiable
wights, and preserved a dispiriting but veracious
silence.

" The crops are all laid by," said a pleasant-
spoken bystander. " Some folks may come down
out'n the coves."

" I hear there is a mining camp some miles down
the river," said Lloyd hopefully. " We lay con-
siderable on that."

" Convict camp," said the clerk sepulchrally,
and the amiable bystander burst out laughing.

;4 Them fellers have season tickets whar they
be, stranger," he said. And then he winked
hilariously at the clerk, whose funereal aspect
brightened dimly at the dreary jest.

The small boy, ubiquitous expression of hu-
manity, was out in force, and underfoot as usual.
Every screw that went into the adjustment of the
merry-go-round, the wooden head of every dummy
horse, the great frame of the Ferris wheel, slowly
rounding its circumference high into the air above
the house tops and showing the solemn, austere,
purpling mountain landscape, suffused with bur-

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The Windfall

nished, golden light, grotesquely framed by its
towering circle — every detail passed under the
personal supervision of the juvenile element of the
town, and if the elders lacked interest it was more
than atoned for by the frenzy of enthusiasm which
possessed the juniors. The rearing of the tall
mast, from the summit of which the noted " Cap-
tain Ollory of the Royal Navy," according to the
florid announcement of the posters — videlicet
Haxon, himself, and of what royal navy remains
forever unexplained — was to spring into the air and
plunge into a reservoir of water below, marked the
accession of adult curiosity. This increased to open
comment when Haxon himself appeared, cautiously
superintending its solid adjustment in the ground,
the stretching of the guy wires, the placing in
position, at the correct distance, of the great
trough of water which was to break the force
of his leap from the giddy height of the sum-
mit.

The gratuitous advice, freely proffered, and the
expressions of wonderment on all sides changed to
injurious doubt, as the magnitude and risk of the
proposed feat percolated through the densities of
the uninformed rural mind. " Jump off'n that
thar pole ? — never in this worP ! " said one of the
bystanders. " Onpossible ! " commented another.
Others opined, " Takes more'n the Street Fair ter
fool we-uns."

" Time come, an' the Cap'n will be tooken with
the chicken pip, or the bilious colic, or some dis-

The Windfall

abling complaint an' the defrauded public will be
jes' settin' with its finger in its mouth."

If Haxon heard aught of these disaffected re-
marks he manifested no heed. Silent, surly, he
doggedly gave his whole attention to the details
on which his life depended. He was well aware
that however sparse the attendance at the Street
Fair, however disastrous the enterprise financially,
the exhibition of his " high dive " must be given,
for it was of necessity performed in the open air,
and therefore was a free show in the nature of an
advertisement.

Lloyd had often heard the cynical remark that
the spectators of a hazardous acrobatic feat crowd
to see the performer killed, not to witness his tri-
umph, and he was reminded of this as he watched
the unsympathetic citizens of the little town and
heard their comments and speculations concerning
his partner's feat, for Haxon was a half owner
of the enterprise. Lloyd deprecated infinitely
Haxon's mood of surly disaffection. He knew
that it tended to impair the acrobat's nerve and to
render his terrible feat doubly dangerous. Haxon,
of all men, should cultivate composure, a cheerful
and equable state of mind. Lloyd was subtly
aware that his partner secretly upbraided him for
this unfortunate move, the culminating disaster of
an unsuccessful season. For the company to go
to pieces at last in the remote wildernesses of the
Great Smoky Mountains was indeed the extremest
spite of fate, and even speculation shrunk back

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The Windfall

appalled from the utter blank of the possibilities
beyond. The exchequer was almost empty; it was
" up to them," as they had said dolorously to each
other, to make their transportation back to New
York, and they would have been glad of this, even
with empty hands as the guerdon of their summer's
hard work. And in fact this meant no inconsider-
able sum, for in addition to the concessionaries who
sold and mended umbrellas, parasols and fans, dis-
mayed inexpressibly by their sudden projection into
this primitive community, the owners of the candy
stands and peanut roasters, the company carried
perforce a goodly number of individuals. While
there were performers who did double duty in
various wise, the " stunts " of the specialists could
not be delegated, and this swelled the bulk of the
expense accounts. True, Haxon, when his great
diurnal feat had been exploited, was wont to array
himself in correct evening dress and perform with
great spirit on the cornet as the noted soloist,
Signor Allegro. The u Flying Lady," when not
ethereally a-wing, developed into a ticket-seller of
no mean abilities. Even the noted juggler of the
company found time to sing tenor in the quar-
tette of the " high-class concert." But for the most
part the duties of the others were continuous, and
they were restricted to their several stations. Nat-
urally, the freaks— a "Fat Lady," a "Wild
Man," and a " Living Skeleton " — dared not court
gratuitously the gaze of the public who ought to
pay for the privilege of a shock to the nerves, and

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The Windfall

sedulously secluded themselves in their tents; the
kinetoscope must needs shift its scenes unceasingly,
and the wild west play which it exhibited reached
a conclusion only to begin its active agonies anew;
the merry-go-round and the Ferris Wheel were
ready to solve the problem of perpetual motion,
and throughout all the brass band brayed, in tune
by happy accident, or, deliriously indifferent to
the laws of harmony, vociferously off the key.
But for this microcosm, this bizarre little world
to revolve at all, must be attainable the essential
motive power, the admittance fee in goodly
quantity.

The prospect here had seemed so promising, so
reasonable. The company had struggled against
the unvarying luck of superior counter-attractions
wherever they had gone; to give their show in a
locality unused to all diversion, with not a rival
in prospect nor even in reminiscence, was a lure not
to be disregarded. The lack of an audience in
so sparsely settled a community did not readily
occur to them; a town, even a little town, implies
normally a tributary region of suburbs and farms.
The vast uninhabited mountain wildernesses faced
them like the land of doom.

Lloyd had had no Scriptural tuition that could
remind him of the Scapegoat of the Hebraic ritual,
loaded with the sins and the curses of the people
and driven into the desert to lose itself in those
aridities and die; but could the creature have pos-
sessed any sense of its doom and its direful burden,

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The Windfall

Lloyd might have realised its sentiments, as he
gazed appalled upon the infinite stretching of those
austere and lofty mountains, which even in the days
of the aboriginal inhabitants of the country were
called " The Endless." It was not his fault, he
said bitterly to himself, his eyes hot as he gazed.
The subject had been fully discussed, and all had
agreed on the experiment. Haxon, though a part
owner of the precarious and ephemeral property,
had not made a protest — nay, he had been an
earnest advocate of " fresh fields and pastures
new." Now Lloyd abruptly reminded him of this,
as with a sudden lurch and an exclamation of im-
patience Haxon snatched the hammer of a work-
man and with two or three well-directed blows
drove home the steel spike that held down one of
the guy wires. He looked up, still in his bent
posture, from under his frowning dark eyebrows;
his round, florid face, that was wont to be so jovial,
was all lowering and sullen. His small dark eyes
flashed with antagonism and vexation. " Who's
sayin' as I didn't agree — eh? Well," as Lloyd
made an intimation of negation, " what's gnawin'
on ye, then? "

This was evidently no time nor mood for the
discussion of the matter, and indeed discussion was
futile, a mere waste of words. The die was cast.
The Street Fair had met its fate. If the company
had been wrecked on a desert island its case could
not be more desperate.

Lloyd turned away, looking dully about him.
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The Windfall

There was scant supervision now necessary — the
old routine, practised week after week since the
early spring, had grown so familiar to the work-
men that the most ingenious blunderer could hardly
find a pretext for his activities, and little by little
Lloyd's meditative steps took him slowly along the
smooth red clay road till presently he found him-
self on the outskirts of the town and nearing the
river. He shook his head gloomily when he stood
on the high rocks of the bank and gazing down
perceived the course that the road followed
through a clifty defile to reach the verge and the
ford — there was not even a bridge in this be-
nighted spot, and yet this was a county town!
The water was swift, evidently deep — he marked
the distance down the stream where the road once
more resumed its course on the opposite bank. It
obviously took a devious route along the bed of
the river, picked its steps so to speak; there must
be deep holes, quicksands, pitfalls on either side
of the comparatively safe footing of the ford, he
reflected. Suddenly he noticed the footbridge;
this followed a direct line across the torrent — a
trifling, primitive structure, consisting of a couple
of logs with a shaking hand-rail, and with the deep,
turbulent swift flow of a rocky mountain stream
beneath. Once more he dolorously shook his
head. Hither must come the patrons of the Street
Fair, even now spreading its attractions on the
public square to welcome them — not yet a canvas-
covered wagon in sight, no horseman, no foot-

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The Windfall

passenger to tempt the instabilities of the little
bridge.

He laid his hand on the rail and as he crossed
felt the elastic structure sway beneath every step,
while the waters swirled far below. But as he
reached the opposite bank and paused for a mo-
ment his anxieties were calmed in spite of himself
by the sweet peace of the dark, cool solitude; he
listened to the ripples eddying about the jagged
base of the crags — a sound distinct from the swift
rush of the tumultuous currents. It had a second-
ary tone, seeming keyed higher, a clear metallic
tintinnabulation like elfin minstrelsy, barely heard,
yet not discriminated by the senses. And oh, the
sylvan balm of the air! — it touched so caressingly
the forlorn wight's cheek, his hair as he took off
his hat, his hot, tired eyes, that he had half a mind
to fall a-sobbing on the vague breast of this insen-
sate sympathy. He was comforted in some sort.
His lungs, filled and weighted with the soot and
smoke and dust of a dozen sordid towns, expanded,
drinking in with deep draughts this fragrant elixir
that was but the diffusive air. He looked up into
the dark green boughs of the giant oaks and
beeches, and down again into depths as green,
where the crystal-clear water reflected the verdure,
leaf by leaf and branch by branch — only on the
opposite side of the stream a brilliant section of
vividly blue sky was duplicated, flaring out with a
flake of cloud dazzlingly white.

So revivifying were these influences that he had

The Windfall

a mind for solitude for the nonce. A long quiet
walk he thought would restore his composure and
steady his nerves. He would compass thus a sur-
cease of the anxiety that harassed him, and by
inaction recruit his energies better to cope with
his problems. He had a deft, steady, sure step
as he took his way along the country road, cover-
ing the ground with surprising rapidity, for he was
a strong, athletic pedestrian; not that he had ever
walked either as a pastime or a profession, but he
had done various acrobatic " turns " in his time,
and his muscles had served him well. Now and
again as he went he lifted his head and looked off
through gaps in the foliage at the encompassing
mountains, critically surveying them, it might
seem, his head discriminatingly askew, his bright
eyes narrowing, and it was characteristic of his ex-
perience and his limitations that he appraised the
value of the landscape, not as scenery nor geo-
graphically, nor agriculturally, nor botanically, but
simply as it struck the eye for stage-settings. Oc-
casionally as the road swerved he caught a new
aspect, and turned himself to face the prospect,
holding up both arms to cut off irrelevant details,
and bound the picture to the limits of the most
effective.

" Gee, — what a flat ! " he said once, and some-
times he waved his hands in the air, detaching bits
here and there of cliff, or cataract, or bosky dells
which he considered appropriate for " wings " or
" flies." These erratic attitudinisings might have

The Windfall

suggested a doubt of his sanity had there been aught
to observe him as he climbed with wondrous ac-
tivity the steep ascent of a mountain road, hardly
more indeed than a bridle path, now about seven
miles from Colbury. He saw no living object,
save once, high, high in the air above the ranges, a
majestically circling bird, whose strength and grace
he paused to admire, unaware that it was the dis-
tance which so commended the foul mountain vul-
ture; and once, when the laurel pressed close into
the road and he heard a step within the dense
covert; the next instant a deer bounded out into
the path, caught sight of him, fixed his brilliant
eyes upon him, and stood petrified with terror for
an inappreciable second, holding one forefoot up-
lifted. Then stamping with all four feet together
and poising his antlered head backward in a splen-
did pose the buck sprang down the declivity, and
with an incredible lightness and swiftness disap-
peared in the densities of the deep woods.

The showman stood in stunned amaze. He had
before seen deer — in a disemboweled state and
dead as Ariovistus, hanging at the door of a cer-
tain restaurant of Gotham that thus advertised its
venison, and in the close confines of the zoological
display in city parks, but in its natural state, in its
native woods it was another creature. He had no
dream that a deer was like this.

" Gee," he exclaimed, " I'm paralysed if he ain't
the whole show ! "

He could have cried out with delight when sud-
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The Windfall

denly the river sought anew his companionship.
Down deep in a ravine now it flowed, for he had
been steadily climbing, although the zigzags of
the mountain road had minimised the slant of the
ascent. How darkly cool in its abysmal cliff-
bound channel it looked, how melodiously chant-
ing it was as it went. He wondered if he were
to cross it again — not at this height, he hoped.
But as he progressed ever higher and higher the
stream seemed to sink, ever deeper and deeper,
and presently the woods intervened to screen it
from sight, and soon its voice grew faint as it wan-
dered away till he could barely hear it, still sing-
ing, singing as it went, and then he was not sure
if the sound were of murmurous waters or the
sibilance of the wind.

For the wind was rising, and all the leaves were
astir. A thousand voices seemed suddenly to in-
vade the stillness. He wondered to hear a mock-
ing-bird break out in jubilantly brilliant melody —
he had thought the species silent at this time of the
year; he was acquainted with them as they flour-
ished in cages in barber shops. The trees of the
dense woods were as if endowed with language,
for he discriminated the difference in the rustling
of the varieties of foliage as he passed — a keen
sense he had. A tree toad was shrilling hard by
for rain. He could not see the creature; he had
no idea to what the voice belonged, so limited
was his woodland experience. He only noted
the clamorous appeal, He was beginning to be

The Windfall

tired. He wondered how far he had come at
this brisk pace. Suddenly he fixed the terminus
of his jaunt. The road forked at a little dis-
tance in advance, and he determined that he would
not trust himself to unknown divergences of the
main thoroughfare. He slackened his gait as he
approached the parting of the ways. On one side
the woods grew sparse, showing a deep declivity,
a section of valley far, far below, and beyond a
panorama of mountain ranges that took his breath
'away, one above another, one beyond another, tier
after tier to the limits of vision. Infinity, that the
mind cannot grasp, was here expressed to the eye.
The amethystine tints imparted by the western
light were upon them, and he knew, therefore,
that they lay to the east, but despite the smile of
the parting sun a great mass of darkly purple clouds
lowered above them, raising a fictitious horizon
line almost to the zenith. The wind was a-surge
in these clouds and they visibly careened, and col-
lapsed, and filled out anew as if they were sails
spread to the fury of a gale, but no token of mo-
tion was in the densely wooded mountains beneath
them, and only a gentle breeze ruffled the tree tops
of the valleys, a silver wake following its invisible
passage. On the other side of the road he noted
how the timber had been cut away; a cornfield was
yellowing in the sun, and at the summit of the
slant he perceived, lazily adrift in the air, a whorl
of smoke that issued from the crooked and dilapi-
dated stick-and-clay chimney of a little Jog-cabin,

IS

The Windfall

almost invisible, embowered amongst the boughs
of an ample orchard of thrifty apple trees. Nearer
at hand these gave way to peach trees planted in
regular avenues and great numbers. In the dearth
of manufacturing energies in the region and evi-
dences of any agricultural industry, except of the
simplest limits, he was surprised by these sugges-
tions of enterprise and labour. The grassy glades
between the rows of peach trees were alluring to
the eye ; some cereal had been sown and harvested,
and in the aisles a lush growth of crab-grass had
sprung up, new and thick and green as moss. The
peaches had all been gathered, but the graceful
lanceolate leaves were still dense upon the boughs,
and the somnolent afternoon sunshine here and
there flickered through, and lay in long, burnished
golden shafts adown the green glooms.

And suddenly he was conscious of motion in their
midst. He could not be sure how he had failed
to see the figure earlier — or, indeed, had it just
come within his range of vision. A girl was stand-
ing half in the golden glow, and half in the em-
erald gloom of the shadow, gazing up wistfully
at a bough gently swaying just beyond her
reach. As the breeze tossed it, he saw the prize
that lured her — a great Indian peach, the last of
the season, with all the sweetness of the summer
suns, with all the freshness of the summer rains
stored within the luscious darkly-red globe. She
raised her hand, and made a sudden leap toward
it with the lightness, the grace, the agile strength

The Windfall

of 2 deer. The wind brushed the bough beyond
her reach, and once more she bounded toward it
elastically.

The indescribable grace of her attitudes ap-
pealed to the man whose education, and interest,
and business in life were pose. Nothing more
ethereally dainty was ever exploited before the
footlights. He caught his breath, as, realising that
she had not perceived him standing in the road, he
gave himself up to staring at her, with a vague
sense of a discovery growing upon him. Her dress,
rustic though it was, impressed him as crudely
picturesque. It was of the coarsest yellow calico,
and she held up the skirt in front full of clusters
of purple grapes, so overladen that the rich bunches
and tendrils of vine trailed down upon her petti-
coat thus revealed, which was of a dark red cotton.
A short petticoat it was, and showed her feet and
ankles; her chaussure was of the flimsiest, — a pair
of old rubber sandals, that, laced with thongs
across her red hose, with only a utilitarian intent
of retaining them in place, had contrived to achieve
a classic effect; these members were so active,
so swift and certain, so deftly used, so elastic
of muscle as she skipped and leaped, that the
idea of the boards was suggested anew — no pre-
miere danseuse that he had ever seen could do
a " turn " more daintily. She had all the sportive
innocence of a fawn.

A certain difficulty encumbered her. She carried
on her head a basket or a jpiggin, .hardly visible

20

The Windfall

so filled it was with grapes, the tendrils and clus-
ters falling partly outside till they touched her
thick auburn hair, coiled in a great curling mass
at the back of her head. She now steadied this
pail with one upheld hand, the arm bare to the
elbow, and again she caught at the peach, her fair
up-turned face smiling, her brown eyes alight with
fun and yet all a-gloat, her full red lips parted
over her perfect teeth, and as she danced she sang,
or rather panted out, a stanza of a song that
seemed inapposite save for the first line, which,
perhaps, suggested it to her mind :

" Oh, shell I git my heart's desire,
Kind shepherd, tell me true,
That I may quit before I tire,
My Kate has many come to sue."
"Once you fail— 'tis talking,
Twice you fail — 'tis mockingk
Thrice you fail — 'tis shocking,
But a fool will ever play with fire."

Her voice was crudely loud, but so clear. Every
tone was so justly true. The enunciation was
faulty beyond any power of description, and at
first it made him wince, albeit his own capacities
for declamation were of no high order. Then her
singing struck him as characteristic — good of its
kind, but of a kind never classified. He had an
instinct for novelty. The second time she sang
the stanza, giving herself up with a sort of joyous
abandon to the dance, for now she seemed hardly
to hope to reach the peach, he was entranced with
the picture she presented, the exquisite grace of
her attitudes, the incomparable lightness and

21

The Windfall

strength of her dancing, her beautiful, symmetrical
form, and the strong sweet melody of her voice
as it floated out so richly. He noted the con-
trast of her slender waist and limbs with the full
throat — revealed by the bodice of the orange-
tinted calico, the edges of which were turned in at
the top for added coolness — the deep chest. With
the vocal endowments the build assured the singer.

His interest was as impersonal as if she were
indeed a feature of some Thespian exhibition.
He had not thought how the scene must end —
that if he moved she must descry him standing
so near at hand in the road. And in fact he did
not move — he was still motionless, spellbound,
when a wider circuit of the tree brought him sud-
denly within her range of vision. She paused so
abruptly as to jeopardise the equilibrium of the
pail on her head and she lifted her hand to steady
its profuse wealth of grape clusters, and thus she
stood at gaze, her lips parted, her eyes dilated
with astonishment.

He divined her sentiments at the moment of
discovery, but he could not understand the facial
expression that ensued. Her eyes narrowed with
an inimical suggestion, watchful, expectant. Her
red lips closed firmly. He had not before noticed
how strong of contour was her chin, intimating
resolution. He lifted his hat courteously, and
waited for her to speak. She remained silent,
and there was a moment of vacuum.

Then a sudden sound smote the stillness. A
22

The Windfall

tremendous peal of thunder came from the mass
of darkly purple clouds suspended above the
mountains across the valley. As he instinctively
turned his head, they were rent by a swift zigzag
gleam of a sinister whiteness, and again the
thunder pealed. The turmoils that had earlier
convulsed the clouds had now taken definite direc-
tion. The wind was driving them hitherward
across the valley, and for the first time in his life
he heard the raindrops pattering down upon tree
tops two thousand feet below him, while he stood
high in the sunshine. One of the sudden mountain
storms impended. In another moment, as he per-
ceived, the torrents would be loosed upon them.
He was arrayed to simulate prosperity; " out-at-
elbows," even in a showman, is a confession of
disaster. Had business been good he would have
gone far less smart. He had a prudential con-
sideration of shelter.

" Gee ! There comes a corker ! " he exclaimed.
" Could I go to the house, lydy? "

He realised the incongruity of the address with
this untutored peasant, but a sense of policy blended
with his extravagant courtesy in its application.
The " lady " gazed at him with that countenance
of severe monition which he hardly understood.

" I was thinkin' ez ye mought ez well," she
replied. Her answer was not so ungracious as
irrelevant. He was a man of keen intuitions, and
he was realising that their thoughts did not meet.
She spoke of somewhat else than the storm. He

The Windfall

was not a well-bred man in any sense. The im-
personations of the stage comprised his tuition of
conduct and courtesy, but he had the veneer which
even the observation of the customs of gentility
afford, the manners of the street, the trains, the
theatre, and, as she threw down the bars of the
fence and came into the road, he lifted his hat
again, and prepared to walk by her side, and pro-
posed to carry her pail. She said nothing. She
only gave him a wide, uncomprehending stare, then
fell into the road several paces behind him. For
his life he could not avoid turning, and slacken-
ing his gait, that she might come up alongside.

" Keep right ahead, " she said severely, and thus
admonished he took up his line of march for the
cabin on the hill.

She herded him along as a canine guardian of
a flock might regulate the progress of a stray sheep.
Once he again stepped instinctively to one side of
the path in the expectation that she would join
him, but she instantly crossed to the same side,
and kept the distance the same between them, some
two paces, even when the drops began to fall, and
he quickened his gait to a speedy run. Only a
short interval elapsed before they were at the bars
of the pasture fence, which were already on the
ground, and traversing the absolutely bare and
hard-trodden dooryard to a log cabin of a most
uninviting aspect.

He had scant opportunity to mark its details
till he was on the rickety little porch where, look-

24

The Windfall

ing over his shoulder, he had a cursory glimpse of
its stereotyped features— strange enough to him;
the wood-pile, situated on a sea of chips; the bee-
gums, ranged along the fence ; the grindstone ; the
ash-hopper; the rooting pigs in a corner; the
cow, standing in a shed at one side waiting to be
milked; a good strong waggon also under that
shelter; a bevy of poultry, big and little, pecking
about the door ; a dozen curs of low degree noisily
yelping around him, with so spurious an affecta-
tion of fierceness that it could not impose even
on a stranger's fears ; and a big bulldog, of a most
ferocious silence, slowly dragging a block and
chain from under the house. Infinitely incon-
gruous the whole seemed with the imperial, august
aspect of the purple, storm-dominated mountains
beyond and the smiling serenity of the far sunlit
valleys, their variant tones of green enriched by
the burnished golden afternoon glamours, and
by the silver glintings of the river coursing through
the coves in the distance. The next moment the
clouds fell like a curtain before them all. The
thunder pealed; the torrents descended; the door-
yard was a network of puddles, and the clamor-
ous beat of the rain on the roof made the room
into which he was ushered resound like a drum.

CHAPTER II

HILARY LLOYD had never seen aught
like this apartment. The beams of the
low, unplastered ceiling, brown with
smoke and age, were hung with strings of red
peppers and bunches of herbs; the two beds, high
and plump, were covered with gay patchwork
quilts of marvellous design; the vast fireplace —
he could hardly believe his eyes when he marked
the clay-and-stick materials of its construction —
looked as if it had been built by some big bird;
the quaint pots, and ovens, and skillets, and trivets
ranged in one corner he appraised as cooking uten-
sils, but their like he had never before beheld ; for
a moment he did not recognise the use of a queer
box-like cradle, which a faded young woman, with
a snuff brush in her mouth, was rocking with one
foot, delegated to maternal duty, while she sat
staring with lack-lustre eyes at the advent of the
stranger with the daughter of the house.

"Hi!" he exclaimed delightedly. "Hello,
Baby! " He did not wait to make sure of his
, elcome or for any formalities of introduction.
He pounced down on the cradle, yanked out the
infant from the coverlets, tossed it up to the ceil-
ing, and then set it on the tall mantelpiece, hold-

26

The Windfall

ing it there with both hands to take a good look
at it, while the members of the family stood around
in wonder. Whether the child fancied that it had
already met the showman and mistook his identity,
whether this boisterous method of address ac-
corded with its undeveloped sense of manners,
whether the nap to which it had been consigned
were compulsory and it rejoiced in its release, it
responded genially to the demonstration in the
spirit in which this was tendered. It was an attrac-
tive object as it sat on the high mantelpiece and
flopped its very fat legs to and fro, frankly ex-
hibited by its short pink calico skirt, and laughed
widely with two pearly white teeth all agleam in
a very red mouth. It had red hair, curling in
very seductive ringlets about a fair brow, and its
big blue eyes were as merry as a clown's. At
every jocose movement of Lloyd's thumbs on its
fat stomach, tickling it surreptitiously as he held
the child on its perch, it burst into repeated peals
of infantile laughter, and no one cared how hard
the rain came down, or listened to the thunder
roll.

" By George, you're a peach! you're a daisy! "
cried Lloyd hilariously.

" Be you uns a family man, stranger? " a high
vibratory voice queried, and Lloyd glancing down
beheld at one side of the fire an ancient wrinkled
face, surrounded by the crinkled ruffle of a great
white cap, a venous hand, holding a pipe of strong
tobacco at arm's length, and a thin bent figure

27

The Windfall

attired in a blue and white checked homespun
gown, with a little red plaid shoulder shawl.

" Good-evenin', madam," he said, snatching off
his hat — one hand could hold the baby. " Fam-
ily man ? — nope! " he replied emphatically, and he
shook his head sagely. * The kind of biz I'm in
don't give a feller much chance at the domestic
altar — winter and summer, night and day, on
the go. As to the lydies — they ain't disposed to
marry a man on the road."

He could not understand the appalled pallor
that settled on her pinched high-featured face.

" Why n't ye git a better bizness? " she asked,
with the plangent cadence of reproach.

He stared, again confronted with that sense of
being at once uncomprehending and uncompre-
hended. " Do I speak the English langwitch, or
not? " he said petulantly in his inner consciousness.
For the situation fostered doubts.

The stress of the obvious misunderstanding
placed a period to the carousal with the baby, and
he handed the infant back to its mother as he took
a tendered chair. The child had no mind to re-
linquish the gay company it had encountered, and
clung to the showman, working both bare feet
in the direction of its lackadaisical mother, with
a very distinct intention of making her keep her
distance, if kicks might suffice. Its strength did
not match its resolution, however, and it was
shortly consigned to its cradle, where it crawled
up out of its coverings, whenever it was laid on

28

The Windfall

its back, yelling vociferously and continuously,
save when it paused once or twice to break into a
laugh as Lloyd leaned over the back of his chair
to snap his fingers at it.

" You have got a dandy place up here," he said
by way of making his stay agreeable. " Fine
orchard. Must have oodles of apples and
peaches."

Again that doubt of the " English langwitch "
assailed him. Surely he had said naught affright-
ing, but there was a look like terror in the old
woman's eyes.

" Some oj the trees ain't good bearers," said
the girl, speaking for the first time since their en-
trance. She had bestowed elsewhere her burden of
grapes, and she was standing now on the broad
hearthstone divested of those picturesque acces-
sories to her costume. Lloyd was conscious of a
curiosity concerning her beauty, thus devoid of
embellishment, but as he turned to critically scan
her appearance his attention was struck by a pecu-
liarity that diverted his survey. She had just been
out in the rain — yet how they had both run to
reach the shelter before the bursting of the storm !
She was evidently wet to the skin, and as she stood
on the hot flagstones the water ran off her hair,
her hands, her skirts in rills, and the heat of the
fire sent the steam ascending from every drenched
fold of her garments. Her errand had obviously
been a matter of some importance toward which
she had had little inclination, for she did not relish

29

The Windfall

her dripping condition, as was manifested in the
fact that she was immediately taking down a fresh
gown from where it had hung on a nail on the
back of a door, and rummaging in a chest for
other dry gear. She did not leave the room, how-
ever, till a heavy step smote the puncheons of the
porch, when she gathered up the fresh garments
and climbing a ladder-like stairway to a room
in the roof, disappeared in the attic.

She had gone to summon the master of the
house on his account, Lloyd realised at length, and
with a sentiment of expectant anxiety he turned
toward the newcomer, although for his life he
could not understand what should require the girl
to face a tempest like this to bring the owner to
reckon with a chance wayfarer, seeking shelter
from a storm. The owner, nay, two, five, a half
dozen stalwart men, heavily built, tall, bearded, clad
in brown jeans, trooped in, their united tramp shak-
ing the puncheons of the floor like the march of a
detachment of infantry. They, too, dripped with
the rain, but with more unconcern than the girl had
manifested, for they ensconced themselves in chairs,
two or three joining the group around the hearth-
stone, where winter and summer the mountaineer's
fire is always aglow, its intensity governed by the
temperature; the others leaned back against the
wall, their splint-bottomed chairs tilted on the hind
legs, all solemnly silent, all monotonously chewing
their quids of tobacco, all stolidly eyeing the
guest.

30

The Windfall

Only the eldest seemed to anticipate conversa-
tion. Not that he spoke himself, but he fixed his
eyes so interrogatively, so coercively on Lloyd's
face that the expression betokened a hundred eager
questions. An account of himself was evidently
in order — but why? Lloyd glanced out of the
open door at the glittering, steely, serried ranks of
the rainfall, thinking that as soon as they had
marched past and down the valley he too would
speedily evacuate the premises and see his queer
entertainers never again — unless indeed they were
minded to patronise the attractions of the great
Lloyd & Haxon Street Fair now ready to exhibit
in Colbury. The association of ideas allayed a
sudden rush of anger which was rising in his
consciousness, responsive to the uncertainty of his
position, the peculiarity of their manner, the im-
possibility to compass an accord of comprehension
in these simplicities of circumstance. It was
stemmed in an instant by the instinct of the show-
man. Since he was expected by his uncouth host
to inaugurate the conversation he would in the
interest of the show waive ceremony and essay
whatever topic came first to his tongue.

" Sudden storm, sir," he said. " I was out
there admiring your fine orchards and it overtook

me."

The host's jaw dropped. It was odd that his
face could be so expressive, masked as it was by
a bushy growth of red beard, evidently once of
fiery tint, but now so veined with grey that the

31

The Windfall

effect was quenched to a degree. Perhaps because
all its indicia were of the conventional type their
significance was easily discerned. His mouth,
cavernous amidst the beard, stood open in readily
interpreted dismay. His small brown eyes hung
with a persistent appeal on the eyes of the stranger.
His head bent forward stiffly, with an intent, ex-
pectant waiting. He uttered not a syllable.

"Great Scott! They all look as if they had
seen a ghost ! " thought the amazed Lloyd.

The next moment he felt a sudden touch on his
knee, and turning sharply in his chair, perceived
the old woman's tremulous claw bespeaking atten-
tion as she leaned forward toward him from her
chimney corner. Her cap frills quivered in her
agitation ; her face was deathly pale. " Stranger,"
she said solemnly, " we make vinegar, an' sell it
— an' not a thing else. Vinegar — vinegar — sell it
to the stores in town."

Lloyd stared. He felt as if he were in a night-
mare. Yet he could recall no nightmare that had
ever exerted so great a strain on his mental
endowments.

"Vinegar?" he said with a forced laugh.
" Well, I don't take much stock in vinegar. I
ain't one of the sour kind. Vinegar ain't good to
drink. I couldn't pledge your health in that, lydy.
With all of them fine fruits I should think you
might make something better than vinegar."

The host spoke up acridly.

" Mam," he addressed the old dame, " you jes'

The Windfall

hesh up." His voice was husky, as if he spoke
with an effort — hasty, as if he scarcely knew what
to say.

Lloyd turned upon him with a sudden flare of
anger. " I don't want to call a man a cad in his
own house," he flamed. " But the lydy will talk
as she pleases while I'm aboard. I'd oodles rather
talk to her than to you, sir."

The old woman had evidently lost her poise —
she cast an amazed, affrighted glance upon her son.
Then she clumsily sought to repair the damage
that she fancied she had done. "Dried apples,
stranger, an' dried peaches. We uns cut an' sell
'em ter the store — in town. Dried apples an*
peach-leather."

" Very praiseworthy. But dried apples ain't
the best thing that can come out of an orchard,"
Lloyd began, but the host cut him short.

" Mam," said the great, bearded giant, antici-
pating her reply — his face a very mask of terror
— " ef you uns don't hesh up "

"What will you do, eh? Nothing while I'm
here," Lloyd blustered. " Why, man, you're a
monstrosity. I've a mind to take you off with
me! " There was a sudden stir behind Lloyd; he
had a vague perception that the five other men
were afoot with some intent, which he did not
know, and for which he did not care. " I'll put
you on exhibition in my show as the c wild man
of Persimmon Cove.' You ain't any more civil-
ised than my big boa constrictor. You ought to

33

The Windfall

draw a crowd all by your lonesome. What sort
of behaviour is this for a son? "

" Oh," squealed the old woman savagely, " he
is the best son that ever stepped — an' I'll mark
the face o' the man who says the contrairy 1 " She
held up her talons tremulously. 4 The best son
that ever stepped."

" Mam," quavered the mountaineer, in despair,
" you uns will ruin me bodaciously. Jes' hesh yer
mouth an' hold yer tongue, ef so be ye know how."

Lloyd, still seated, looked up wonderingly at the
group, now all afoot and gathered about him.
He noted that the two younger men presently
placed themselves by the door, as if he might make
a break for liberty. He was aware, too, for the
first time of the number of weapons on the walls.
The rifle on deer antlers above the mantelpiece
had caught his attention when he first entered, but
now he took heed of others here and there sus-
tained in place by pegs driven between the logs.
This was not remarkable, perhaps, since there were
several men in the family, but he was not used
to seeing a living room unite its functions with
that of an armoury. He could understand naught
of the strange episode, and it had elements and
suggestions infinitely distasteful to his predilec-
tions. " All I have got to say then is that bad is
the best — if that is the best son," Lloyd persisted.
" He has got no more feeling than the big snake
in my show."

The word, mentioned for the second time, made
34

The Windfall

a definite impression. There was a sudden abso-
lute pause within. The wind outside rose and fell
in sonorous gusts above the vast valley. The
iterative beat of the rain on the roof was differen-
tiated, in the myriad tentative touches of the drops,
from the swirling splash of its aggregations from
the eaves. The log on the andirons, long
a-smoulder, broke in twain with a dull crash, its
two ends falling apart on the piles of ashes in
either corner, and sending up a shower of sparks
and a cloud of pungent smoke. Even the padded
footfalls of one of the dogs were discriminated in
the silence as he trotted across the floor and stood
at the door, gazing out at the rain for a moment,
then with a blended yawn and whine stretched
himself to unprecedented proportions and once
more came back to lie on the warm hearth, where
the group still stood motionless, towering expect-
antly over the visitor as Lloyd sat in his chair and
stared blankly at them all.

"A show, stranger?" the husky voice of the
master of the house ventured dubiously. " Be
you uns got a show? "

" I have that," Lloyd declared promptly, " and
don't you forget it. The Lloyd & Haxon Com-
pany. Greatest show on earth! Unrivalled at-
tractions! Flying Lydy, Fat Lydy, Isaac, the
snake-eater — eats 'em alive, — Captain Ollory, of
the Royal Navy, greatest high dive artist in the
world — daily exhibition free, — finest Ferris Wheel
ever seen, Merry-go-round with both saddles and

35

The Windfall

chariots — great musical attractions — quartet of
high-class singers, and daily recitals by Signer
Allegro on the cornet — brass band concert before
each performance — pyrotechnic exhibition at night,
free . . ." he reeled off this farrago with the
utmost respect and seriousness while his host stared
in astonishment.

" Stop — stop " cried the showman sud-
denly. " I have got some pictorial paper here and
other literachure of the company." He drew from
his breast pockets some compactly folded posters
which when opened out proved to be highly tinted
illustrations of these unrivalled attractions. He
sprang nimbly out of his chair and began good-
naturedly to spread them out on the floor of the
cabin at the feet of the old " lydy " who had
threatened him with a passage at arms. The
others stood around dumbly, doubtfully staring at
the red and yellow daubs; even the dogs joined the
circle, vaguely wagging their tails and now and
then gazing up hopefully into their masters1 faces,
as if to demand when something in the nature of
a banquet would ensue on so much show of interest.
One of them, a pointer, suddenly impatient, walked
across the paper, leaving on it the imprint of his
toes damp from a recent excursion into the puddles
of the porch. Lloyd caught him by the nose and
lifted him off with one hand. " What d'ye mean
by spoiling the portrait of the fat lydy," he said,
and dropping on one knee he rectified the damage
with his handkerchief.

The Windfall

"Where? — where, stranger?" demanded the
old woman in a twitter of the keenest curiosity.
"Waal, sir!" eyeing the picture, " she is boda-
ciously broad. Air that thar a speakin' likeness,
sir? "

" Honest, she is fat," said Lloyd. " She has
to ride in a cart by her lone. But she is a
very nice lydy — high-toned. I feel sorry for
her."

"Why?" asked the girl, unexpectedly.

Lloyd glanced up doubtfully at her from his
lowly posture, then slowly rose to his feet.

" Well," he said, turning his head thoughtfully
to one side, as if to scrutinise his impressions, " I
always was sorry for freaks. They are always in
demand, and they generally earn a handsome sal-
ary, but money ain't everything — money can't
make people happy."

He stopped short, reflecting that a compara-
tively small amount would add very materially to
his prospect of felicity.

Once more he had a shuddering sense of a
venerable claw laid on his arm. The old woman
was at his side. " Stranger," she said mysteri-
ously, " ef anybody in town axes you ef we uns
make money up hyar on the mounting you kin jes'
sw'ar ez ye knows 'tain't true. We uns ain't got
nuthin' ter make money with."

Lloyd gazed in amazement at her — then
around at the humble place with every evidence
of poverty, and to his mind, discomfort. But he

37i

The Windfall

Could not with civility acquiesce in her statement
and he hesitated.

" Mam," her son plained, " ye air wuss than
pore, ye air plumb deranged. This hyar man air
a showman."

" And I want you, sir, for a freak ! " Lloyd de-
clared rudely. " Allow me, lydy, to present you
with some free tickets for the show, for yourself
and these other two lydies. These will be good
for any day and the whole biz, if you can come
down to Colbury one day this week." He was
shuffling the little blue and red cards in his hands,
his instinct being to include the entire family, but
a recollection of the acrid remonstrances of u Cap-
tain Ollory of the Royal Navy " on the occasion
of similar generosities, stayed his hand.

" Naw, sir, naw sir! nare one," the head of the
family had found his ordinary sonorous voice.
" We may be pore, ez Mam says, but we pay ez
we go. We kin tote our end of the log. We'll
attend the show — but we ain't wantin' nobody ter
gin us a treat."

" Shadrach, — Shadrach," quavered out the old
woman in a twitter of anxiety, " whut ye talkin'
'bout. Ye know ye ain't got no money — an' you
ain't got no way — no way — ter git no money."

" Hesh that up, Mam," the son admonished
her, " else you'll go distracted, and eend yer days
with a gag in yer mouth an' tied ter the bedpost."

" Cheese it, I tell you ! " Lloyd confronted him
angrily. " You will stow your tongue while I'm

38

The Windfall

here or I'll give you what for. I'd floor you
anyhow for a nickel, but you are too old for me to
touch."

" S'pose you uns try me! " one of the young
mountaineers beside the door stepped forth.

He was like unto the sons of Anak, gigantic of
build, every movement informed with elasticity and
vigour, and the others broke into a great guffaw,
so slight by contrast, so girlishly dapper did Lloyd
appear, with so rose pink a flush in his cheek as he
stood on the hearth. But his eyes flashed at the
challenge, and as the muscular young mountaineer
approached, carefully eyeing him, he threw off his
coat and " bunched his fives " without a moment's
hesitation.

The rural giant's lunge was something fright-
ful in its weighty impetuosity. The stranger side-
stepped with lightning-like swiftness; his arm
flew out in a sudden counter-stroke that landed
with an impact like the click of a solid shot; the
little cabin shook on its foundations and rajig with
a clatter that discounted the tumults of the storm
as the young mountaineer " went to grass " with a
precipitancy that left hardly an available muscle
in his whole big body.

There were some capacities for the enjoyment
of sport and a sense of fair play in the applause of
the others, for Tom Pinnott showed that he was
not seriously hurt by ruefully gathering himself
together and sitting where he had fallen on the
floor, sheepishly laughing and rubbing his shoulder.

39

The Windfall

"How. on yearth, stranger," demanded old
Shadrach Pinnott, who seemed to bear no grudge
for the several smart admonitions as to his filial
conduct which the young showman had adminis-
tered, " How on yearth did ye ever contrive ter
throw Tawm."

" Oh, I have had experience in the ring," said
Lloyd, pulling on his coat. " I trained with a
good prospect for the light-weight championship,
but I gave it up. I don't like to fight. I have
got the sand all right, but I have got to get my
mad up to fight with any spirit. Now, what I like
in a public performance is to show some kind of
merit, you know, of fine flavour. I mean some-
thing pleasing — that don't hurt nobody, nor leave
nobody in the lurch, nor make much of one man
to destroy another's prospects. Competitions
ain't my lay at all. Now, if I could choose I'd
like to exhibit a song and dance such as this lydy
here was enjoying in the orchard. That would hit
the taste of the public, too— to a charm — to a
charm."

He wagged his head with the emphasis of con-
viction. An exquisite bit of rusticity, he felt it
to be, as refined, as delicate, as free from the rough
edges of common country life, idealised because
of the girl's grace and beauty, yet as genuinely
bucolic as a pastoral poem or painting. He had
begun to ply her with insistence. If the " lydies "
would come down he would arrange so that it
shouldn't cost them a cent. By fair rights she

40

The Windfall

ought to be paid for dancing and singing, and as she
cried out in amazed ridicule of the idea he assured
her that in the outside world this happened every
day. Ladies received money, legal tender, actual
currency, for nothing but singing and dancing.
" And few of them can do a turn like you," he
declared. But because of his partner — and he
paused to disclose to them in a voice of mystery
the exceedingly pertinent fact that Captain Ollory
of the Royal Navy, whose real name was Haxon,
was a partner in the enterprise, and without his
consent he dared not offer her money till she had
been tried and the public captured.

"Do you think you would be scared?" he
asked, ready to reassure the delicate feminine
sensibility.

" Skeered o' whut?" she demanded wonder-
ingly.

If she could not instinctively prefigure shrink-
ing from the crowds, from the strange situation,
he determined that he would not suggest the poign-
ant anguish of stage fright, and the thought oc-
curred to him for the first time that this was a
product of civilisation, the evil of self-conscious-
ness, the prescience of carping criticism or ridicule.
He made haste to say that the tent of Isaac, the
snake-tamer, where he was wont to " eat 'em
alive " was at the other end of the Square from the
tent wherein she would sing and dance. True, the
" Wild Man " was a close neighbour, but since she
was to be in effect for a time a member of the com-

The Windfall

pany he would disclose in confidence the circum-
stance that Wick-Zoo, the Wild Man, was getting
to be quite civilised, in fact — in fact — he burst out
laughing, — Wick-Zoo was a pretty good fellow.
She need have no fear of Wick-Zoo, the Wild
Man.

Then he piped up with a very pretty tenor and
sang the air which he had caught from hearing it
in the orchard, and gave her some points as to the
management of her voice to make more of it for
the public behoof.

And while the old grandmother listened sharp-
eyed and spellbound, the girl, proving docile and
tractable, sought to apply his admonitions and
criticism, and now and again his dulcet tenor tones
rang out to illustrate some axiom. The group of
mountain men lingered for a time, but presently
drifted out to the rain-drenched porch, where drops
still trickled from the eaves. The storm was
over; as they gazed out down the valley they saw
that it had become all of a luminous emerald green
with vast clouds of pearl white vapours shimmer-
ing and glistening as the sun smote upon them,
floating between the purple mountains near at
hand and half veiling the distant azure ranges.
A sudden rainbow sprung into the light, spanning
the abysses from Chilhowee to the Great Smoky
heights, and further down the valley, like a faint
reflection of its glories, a duplicate arch was set in
the mists beyond. With stolid unperceptive eyes
they mechanically dwelt upon the scene — it was

The Windfall

to them but the ordinary aspect of life. They
appreciated naught of its splendours, its vastness,
its pictorial values, its uplifting subtlety of sug-
gestion. It meant to them that the rain was over
and that sunset would soon emblazon the west.
Cows were to be milked, the stock to be fed, the
wood to be cut, and perhaps other duties pressed
upon their recollection, for Tom presently said in
a low voice to his father, " Granny mighty nigh
let the cat out'n the bag."

Shadrach Pinnott warily nodded his head in
assent.

Another of his sons spoke up after cautiously
listening to be sure that the newcomer could hear
naught but his own carolling, " * My Kate has
many come to sue ! '

" Ef he hed been what Clotildy took him fur
the whole secret would hev been out fur true."

The bare suggestion that this danger might have
so nearly menaced them put the whole group out
of countenance.

" Ye 'low ez ye be sure, dad, ez he air nuthin*
but a showman like he say? " asked Daniel, the
eldest of Shadrach's sons, a slow, sedate-looking
man of thirty years. " Ye 'low he didn't sense
nuthin' o' the facts from them words that Granny
let fall?"

Shadrach Pinnott's shock head bent in his deep
cogitation. " He hed the papers an' the tickets of
a showman," he argued. " An' thar hev been
word of a Street Fair comin', down in Colb'ry."

43

The Windfall

" An' he hev got the muscle an' the showin' of
a regular prize-fighter," said Tom, the athlete,
bethinking himself to rub his shoulder.

"An' lis'n," said the crafty old moonshiner;
" he sings like a plumb mocking-bird. In my
opinion the whole Revenue Department ain't ekal
ter sech quirin' ez that."

And once more the dulcet plaint " My Kate
has many come to sue," challenged the echoes.

'44

CHAPTER III

FOR a long time after Lloyd had quitted the
place Clotilda Pinnott stood on the porch
and listened to his retreating footsteps.
An impressive silence had succeeded the turmoils
of the storm. No more the echo repeated the
sonorous proclamation of the imperious thunder.
One could hardly realise how the trumpeting wind
had blared through those narrow, deep, mute val-
leys with their yet more secluded, cup-like coves.
The glancing lyrical notes of the rain, falling on
the ear like myriads of uncomprehended words
keyed to harmony in rhythmic measure, had left
but now and again the patter of glittering silver
drops from the low-hanging boughs of some mois-
ture-weighted tree. In this quiescence of nature
she could mark his progress, as silent, too, she
leaned against the post of the rickety porch, her
fresh gown of faint blue cotton still distinct in the
fading light, so clarified was the air, so pervasive
the reflection of the great expanse of the deeply
yellow western sky, glowing like burnished copper
above the dusky purple mountains that deployed
against the horizon line, high above the emerald
valleys below. Now she heard the impact of his
foot on stone, and again it was the shifting of sand

45

The Windfall

and gravel dislodged by his step that told her he
had turned the curve of the road; now she knew
he was almost immediately in a line with the house,
but nearly a thousand feet below on the mountain
side. She was apprised when he passed the chalyb-
eate spring, not indeed by the sound of his tread,
for the distance here was too great; some vague
reverberations began to issue from the gigantic
gneiss cliff hard by that rose austere, grey, col-
umnar, nearly one thousand feet sheer, standing
out in half relief from the main mountain mass
like a flying buttress of some buried castle in the
mythical days of the giants. Its niched and
creviced summit was on a level with the cabin
perched so high on the mountain side, and now
and then a broken vibration betokened the sound
of a step below; then came the echo of a voice
faintly singing the orchard song. Then silence —
a long lapse of time — and still silence.
" He's gone," she said. " He's gone ! "
She sighed with a vague languor, an unappre-
ciated pain, and shifted her posture. The tension
of her vigilance was relaxed. She stretched up
both her arms against the post and dully yawned.
Then she looked out at the scene with the effect of
observing it for the first time. For a long inter-
val she gazed at the burnished translucent yellow
glow of the west that despite its brilliance seemed
to diffuse no light upon the world below. Shadows
were mustering ; the valley beneath could hardly be
discerned now, but for the rising of the mists.

The Windfall

Their white glimmer among the darker tree tops
prolonged the visibility of the forests. Only the
horizon line, sharply drawn against the saffron
glamours of the heavens, preserved the contour of
the mountains, otherwise lost in the dull purplish
dusk.

No longer silence reigned. First she heard the
tremulous trilling of a tree-toad; a pause ensued in
the moist vacuity of the atmosphere, and then came
a raucous tentative note of a frog, and presently
there sounded a dozen like voices, and now the
air rocked to and fro with the strophe and anti-
strophe of the batrachian tribe, all a-croak by the
water courses, and the continuous shrilling of the
cicada. All were loud in the calm twilight, so loud
that an appreciated sense of silence seemed attend-
ant on the evening star, pellucid, white, quivering
in the yellow glow of the west, and the slow drop-
ping of the crescent moon adown and adown the
sky.

Clotilda appeared as if she were going to meet
it, as she suddenly stepped into the bridle path and
began to take her way up the steep ascent of the
mountain. A pine tree showed high against the
heavens, and as she looked the moon seemed for
a time as if entangled amidst its fibrous boughs.
Then, as the direction of the path veered, the mystic
cresset once more swung against the rich daffodil
sky, with opaline glimmers trailing after on all the
sea of mist which now submerged valley and forest,
still vibrant with the voices of the night; the mist

47i

The Windfall

rose above the precipices to the left and tossed its
waves, spectre-like, detached, flickering amongst
the dense jungle of the laurel growths through
which the path had begun to stray. Its trend
grew difficult to discern; now it was obliterated,
then it reappeared, and again was altogether and
finally lost to view. A darksome, dubious way to
be sure, and lonelier than aught might express.
Even Clotilda lingered, reluctant, perhaps, turn-
ing her white face toward the moon, its glamour
full upon her pensive pallor. The darkness an-
nulled all else save only this elfin face among the
glossy leaves gazing on the magic bow of pearl
and loath to quit the light. Suddenly she was
gone.

The rhododendron jungle closed about her. If
there were ever a path in its densities only memory
might discern it, so thick and interlacing were
the evergreen branches. Down and down she
went, retracing her way, it might seem, and ever
and anon parting the redundant dripping boughs
to gaze upward at the moon. She evidently
steered her course through this sea of leaves by its
station in the sky. More than once she deviated
from a direct line, but it was an oft-travelled route
and she showed no signs of hesitation or doubt.
When she reached a moss-covered rock, lying with
a score of its unbroken kind in the density of the
jungle she seated herself for an interval of rest
after her long tramp, betraying not an instant's
uncertainty of the landmark. She rose presently,

48

The Windfall

passed between the great boulder and another, im-
possible to be distinguished from it even in the
light of mid-day, stepped down into a crevice be-
neath them, and vanished from the world.

She had entered an underground passage so
often traversed that the gruesome lonely way did
not seem long to her, nor more beset with danger
than a dark hall of one's familiar home. Her foot
struck upon rock here and there where obviously
there had been drilling and blasting to remove
obstructions to free passage ; now and again a wing
passed her, and as with a woman's horror of a bat
she shrank aside, the uncanny, mouse-like cry of the
creature smote the silence with a nerve-thrilling
shrillness and she set her teeth in endurance,
though all on edge from the repetitious echo.
Louder sounds soon caught her attention and these
too the echo multiplied. She seemed to hear many
voices in the infinitely lonely subterranean reaches
of the mountain. At last a vague light began to
glimmer dully at the end of a long descent. As
she drew nearer and turned suddenly the cavern
opened broadly before her and the flash in her
eyes was almost overpowering for a moment. She
stood still as she always did here, and put her face
in her hands to gradually accustom her sight to the
transition from intensest gloom to glare.

Yet it was not that the light in itself was so
powerful. The glimmer of a tallow dip, how-
ever, was adequate to summon glittering corusca-
tions from the great crystals of iridescent calc-

49

The Windfall

spar that studded the ceiling, and the limestone
walls reflected the light with myriad sparkles.
Their gleaming whiteness was shared by the stalac-
tites which hung down from the roof to meet the
stalagmites uprising from the floor, and in the midst
of this colonnade of the fantastic sculpture of the
waters and the ages — even now she could hear
the ceaseless trickle as drop by drop the mountain
rill, charged with its solution of lime, wrought out
the purpose of creation — the moonshiner had
mounted his still. The great rotund copper, stand-
ing over the rude furnace of stone masonry, the
slouching uncouth figures of the distillers, with
their grotesque shadows following them amidst
these columns of mystic whiteness, the coiling
worm, the big ungainly mash-tubs, the reeking
mass of refuse pomace at one side, were all as
incongruous with the weird subterranean beauty
of the place as some unseemly work of kitchening
wrought in the halls of a palace.

And indeed even these uncultured louts could
not be insensible of the unique splendours of these
surroundings. Unlike the majesty of the moun-
tain landscape, rendered stale by custom, since
from birth they had known naught else, this ex-
pression of nature was rare and strange, and now
and again their minds opened to its aspect.

" I jes' tell you uns, boys," Shadrach Pinnott
sometimes remarked over his meditative pipe, " the
looks o' this hyar spot air plumb splendugious.
Even the parlour in the hotel at Colb'ry ain't ez

5.0

The Windfall

fine a sight ez this place, fur I hev walked along
the front porch thar, an' looked in the door an'
viewed it."

The rare qualities of the place aided their ap-
preciation, for though caves, vast and varied,
were common in the mountains, and also " rock-
houses," as limited grottoes of special geological
deposits were called, they were generally of a
different formation. This was not a limestone
region, and only through some gigantic " fault "
of the ranges, bringing diverse and alien strata
into juxtaposition this calcareous cavern, these
halls of white stone, with their stately colonnades
and semblance of statuary and fantastic carvings,
became possible. It was not, however, sufficiently
rare to render it a curiosity or to lure hither the
unwelcome explorer. Along the line of the range,
perhaps within the purlieus of the same vast up-
heaval, a few limestone caves were known to the
experience or the tradition of the mountaineers.
But it was the only one of which the Pinnotts had
knowledge, and they piqued themselves upon the
fact that their discovery was not shared. Its exist-
ence, so far as Shadrach Pinnott was aware, was
absolutely unsuspected save to a few woodsmen
like himself whose prowlings amidst the prime-
val wildernesses of the Great Smoky had led them
to these deep seclusions, and these were associated
in the profit and the dangers of the illicit distillery.
Thrice since the still had been in operation under
the white splendours of the stalactitic roof had the

51

The Windfall

marshal's men scoured this region in search of the
manufacturers of moonshine whisky — thrice had
they ridden away no wiser than they came. Old
Shadrach began to fancy his stronghold impregna-
ble, to look forward to a long lease of vinous pros-
perity. While it might be rumoured that he was
concerned in the "wild-cat," he could not be
tracked to his lair, and much immunity had made
him daring and enterprising.

Even now the girl's entrance remained un-
noticed in the vehemence of the remonstrance
urged upon him, as he sat on one of the stalag-
mites that had risen only a few feet from the floor,
the stalactite depending from above scarcely reach-
ing the top of his old wool hat. He looked as
immovable, as impervious to argument, as if his
uncouth figure piecing out the column were of the
same material.

" It's a resk — it's a tumble resk," one of the
younger men was saying. He had an eager,
ardent aspect, unlike the usual mountain type, the
dull lack-lustre Pinnott men. He had large, ex-
cited brown eyes, and his chestnut hair hung in
straight locks to the collar of his blue hickory shirt.
His cheeks were red, and now that his blood was
up it looked as if it might burst through them.
He was tall and agile. He wore his boots drawn
to the knees over his brown jeans trousers — there
were spurs on the heels and his belt held a pistol.
He stood in the flare of the tallow dip glimmering
from a low stalagmite which was consigned to

The Windfall

other table-like usage and held also a pone of
bread, a box of tobacco, a pipe, and an old hat.
The others had paused at their labours, the dis-
cussion evidently being a matter of special impor-
tance, and looked around without other change of
posture. Tom Pinnott, stooping to lift a keg of
" singlings " to the doubling still, his head lower
than the vessel, seemed as if he might have been
petrified in that attitude, so little did it seem possi-
ble to sustain it by mere muscle.

" It's a resk, to be sure," said Shadrach Pin-
nott, his face under his shock of red hair as
devoid of animation as if it had been carved
from a turnip. " But everything is a resk. Livin'
is a resk — no man knows what he air goin' ter run
up agin pernicious afore night, — but we uns all
resk it."

" We uns don't all resk the revenuers though —
fur nuthin'," Eugene Binley declared significantly.

It was a word seldom mentioned here — the old
moonshiner elected to affect free agency and fear
of naught. If he had been asked he would have
averred that this place was selected because of its
peculiar convenience in getting the gear easily
down from the mountains. It had a great shaft-
like opening only fifty feet above the valley, and
by means of a " rope-and-tickle," as he called it,
the kegs and barrels were lowered to a level space
in a most secluded nook, whence they could be
taken in the midst of the jungle of the laurel and
rolled down the incline of a sandy slope, loaded

S3

The Windfall

into a waggon on the bank of the river and thence
conveyed along the highway under cover of the
night to the store of the merchants hardy enough
to handle this extra-hazardous ware. Shadrach
Pinnott would never have admitted in words the
necessity to elude the raiders of the revenue force.
He had so long enjoyed safety, ease, the pursuit
unmolested of his chosen vocation, that he actually
felt well within his rights, and that no interference
with him was either justifiable or possible. This
immunity had given his courage a tinge of fool-
hardiness inconsistent with his age, his earlier
devices of precaution, and the terrible and certain
penalties of discovery. His character had taken on
an arrogance unsuited to a man so obnoxious to
the law. He knew, of course, that suspicions of
moonshining had clung about his name, but never
with aught of proof. The marshal's force came
and went, and perhaps he was in their minds merely
rated with others maligned by malice without a
cause, for except that he was an unusually good
farmer, and raised great crops of corn and orchards
of fruit, no evidence of illicit distilling could be
urged against him. For his crops and fruit, value-
less on account of the distance from the rail and
the impossibility of such cumbrous transportation
with a profit, he could show great droves of
well-fed hogs, and they, easily driven through the
country, always found a market and brought fair
prices. Therefore suspicion on this score was
readily evaded, although his detractors signifi-

54

The Windfall

cantly averred that hogs are always fattest when
fed on distillery mash.

Dangers had grazed him close, however. Once
his waggon had been stopped in the road with a
barrel of "wild-cat" whisky under a load of
goose-feathers. The driver at the approach of
a body of mounted men had taken the alarm, cut
the traces and fled with the team, and till it rotted
the waggon had stood there unclaimed, its owner-
ship unproved, and suspicion could not warrant
even the arrest of a man with two good waggons
in his shed and feather-beds on every couch in
his house. These incidents and their discussion
might well sharpen the eyes of the law, and to
Eugene Binley it seemed actually opening the
lion's jaws by main force to go to the Street Fair
in the dry town of Colbury with a waggonload of
the liquid product of the fiery still, under the flimsy
disguise of baskets to sell. He had urged this to
no avail.

* Them baskets ? — why, me an' my industrious
fambly hev been weavin' them splints all las'
winter," and Shadrach gave a humorous snuffle
intended to express the humble, frugal hopes of
the worthy poor. Then he broke out into a satiri-
cal guffaw.

But the blunt mention of the " revenuers " was
more distasteful. He could but feel his jeopardy
when it was thus brought before him. Perhaps,
— who knows ? — now that he was old he regretted
his course for the sake of his sons, to whom he

55.

The Windfall

must leave so desperate a vocation, so rash an
example, so uncertain a fate. The delight of
defying the law when the conscience can appre-
hend no wrong, — for Shadrach Pinnott could
never be brought to perceive that he had not an
inalienable prerogative to do as he chose with
his own, his corn, his fruit, to feed them, to
distil them, to export them, for were they not his,
had he not wrested them from his own land by
the sweat of his brow, the work of his hands, —
better men have shared and resisted encroach-
ments, and defied taxation, and risen in defence
of claims that the law disallowed and made them
law. Of late years he had more earnestly argued
this position within himself, and now and again in
full conclave as they all sat in the chill white
cavern over the coiling toils of the worm, the
younger men drinking in his prelections that had
the native strength of apple brandy. He was an
autocrat amongst them; it was an indignity, an
affront, a disrespect to his grey hair and his pre-
eminence in his station to confront him, even in
warning, with so appalling and degrading a dis-
aster. He retorted instantly.

" Waal, the resk ain't much ter be medjurin',"
he said. " Folks that ain't so damned quick on
the trigger ain't got no call ter be so powerful
'feared."

Eugene Binley winced palpably for a moment.
Then his dark eyebrows met above his blazing
eyes and the blood surged up from his cheeks to

56

The Windfall

the roots of his hair. His breath came hard and
fast. He turned from one to the other as two
of the Pinnott sons, taking the word from their
father, began alternately to bait him.

" Which air you uns mos' afeard of, Eujeemes
— ter stay hyar by yer lone an1 let the revenuers
ketch ye? "

" Or ter go ter Colb'ry along o' we uns an'
hev the sheriff nab ye? " the other agreeably sug-
gested.

Eugene Binley stood snorting like an angry
horse, glancing first at the one with a bag of
grain on his shoulder and then at the other with
the keg of singlings, as both, half bent, leered up
at him from under their shocks of frowsy light
hair, their long tobacco-stained teeth all bared in
their flouting laugh. His right hand was con-
tinually touching the butt of his pistol in his belt,
and drawing back as if he found it scorching hot.
The old man felt called upon to interfere.

" Leave Eujeemes be, boys," he said pacifically.
" 'Twon't do ter bait him like a b'ar. Mos' men
in the mountings hev killed a man, fust or las',
funnin' or fightin'. Eujeemes ain't the fust an'
'tain't likely ez he will be the las'."

" But 't war self-defence," the harassed creature
cried out in a harsh, strained voice. He had made
this plea often enough at the bar of conscience —
his flight had precluded his arraignment at the
bar of justice. " 'T war self-defence — the world
knows it, and the law allows it."

57

The Windfall

* Then why n't ye leave it ter men, Eujeemes? "
Tom's strong back was still bent under the keg
of singlings, and his face was still maliciously
a-grin. Shadrach could not so easily call off his
pack.

This problem of " leaving it to men," the rural
synonym of a court of justice, had tortured the
hunted fugitive day and night. With the limited
mental development of a backwoodsman and the
lack of urban or worldly experience he could not
measure the unseen forces to which he might con-
sign his fate and thus he resolved and then shrank
back, and ventured forth to again run precipitately
to cover. What the lawyers could prove and what
they could not; how much their own codes con-
strained them and what they stretched here and
let fall slack there; what powers the judge pos-
sessed; how grim was the jail; how fell and ran-
corous were the officers of the constabulary —
he could not decide. And thus he lurked here
innocent of the crime of which he dreaded to be
accused, and by his lurking he became inculpated
with the illicit distillery. Now he was doubly
amenable to arrest — to escape on one score would
convict him on another, and the suggestion that
he should leave aught to men had become a
nettling taunt. As he remained silent Ben flung
at him in antistrophe — " Ef he be so willin' ter
leave it ter men why do he shelter hyar with we
uns?"

Once more Shadrach sought to interfere, be-

The Windfall

ginning in an unctuous soothing voice — " Stop,
boys, stop, boys," when suddenly Clotilda stepped
forward into the white lustre of the sparkling walls
and the glimmer of the tallow dip. Her presence
ended logic. " Why, thar's daddy's leetle gal I
How do, Baby. Been singin' an1 chirpin' with
the stranger man like a grasshopper in August
weather."

Clotilda received this simile with a shrug of
disdain. She had begun to think exceedingly well
of her gifts of singing and dancing and scarcely
cared that they should be so lightly and jo-
cosely mentioned. Vanity of all the human
traits is the most easily cultivated, and when Eu-
gene Binley, gathering his composure, asked if
she were going to Colbury, too, with the others,
she replied with a duplicate of the shrug — " Why,
'course / be. They air all goin' jes' on account
o' Me."

59

CHAPTER IV

A extreme surprise at the good fortune of
another is an ungrateful sentiment and
must needs be warily expressed. It tends
to the suggestion that thp reward exceeds the merits
in the case, and Eugene Binley by no means com-
mended himself by the astonishment with which
he now heard for the first time the extraordinary
fact, which Clotilda detailed to him, that her sing-
ing and dancing had so entranced the town-man
that he had besought the Pinnott family to come
to the Street Fair without money and without
price, and that there she was to sing and dance
for all the crowd to wonder at her gifts and grace.
' That ain't whut the Pinnott men-folks air
goin' fur," he said bluntly; " they air goin' ter sell
whisky in that thar dry town." And he pointed
over his shoulder at a load of splint baskets which
several were bringing out of a remote recess, and
which were always unused and fresh, kept as a
light disguise for a waggon otherwise laden. " It's
mighty dangerous," he added. But she made no
comment. Presumably she thought the men were
able to take care of themselves.

He hesitated for a moment, then recurred to the
subject important to none but himself and her.

60

The Windfall

" Singin' with the stranger-man! I wondered
why you uns war so long a-comin' down."

He lifted one hand to that miracle of nature,
the snowy stalagmite that expressed the marvels
wrought by time, that aggregated drops of water,
each with its charge of lime, falling and falling
on the floor beneath till the great pillar stood com-
plete. As he leaned thus he looked down re-
proachfully upon her.

It was hard for her to regain her wonted state
of mind. So fluttered, so elated she had been.

" It ain't much later than common," she said
absently, fingering a red bead necklace around her
throat. He, who knew her simple gauds, was
aware that she rarely wore it and accounted it a
treasure. He divined that it had been donned to
rejoice the eyes of an admiring stranger.

"I s'pose he war all streck of a heap?" he
said craftily, his eyes narrowing as he looked
intently at her.

" I dunno 'bout that," she laughed coquettishly.

"What sort o' appearin' man war he?" Eu-
gene demanded, arrogating the prerogative of
inquisition.

He was not altogether at ease amongst the men,
and was sometimes conscious of a disadvantage
with them, owing to the anomaly of his position,
forced into a crime against the Federal law, of
which he became guilty to evade trial for a crime
against the State law of which he knew himself
innocent. He had not demonstrated any great

61

The Windfall

judgment or capacity in this course, and he knew
it affected their estimate. Other men had done
more heinous deeds who swaggered openly in the
coves. It was in the first rush of terror, the first
ill-considered impulse that he had come here, and
once entrusted with the moonshiners' secret he
could not, he would not draw back. Ill luck might
befall them, and here indeed was a danger. The
fate of the informer, real or suspected, was a more
inevitable terror than all else that menaced him.
But he felt all a man's ascendency over the femi-
nine mind, and indeed she divined naught as she
replied to his questions.

" Waal, he is just a pretty boy — plumb beau-
tiful! Mighty nigh ez sweet-faced ez any gal."

" I say * boy ' ! " he replied incredulously.
" They tell me ez he laid Tawm out flat with
one lick. Tawm hev been lame in the shoulder
ever sence."

"Waal — he is surely strong, though only
middle-sized, but mild-eyed — sorter babyfied."

" Shucks ! I say babyfied. Waal — all you uns
goin' ter the show, an' hyar I be 'feared ter stir,
— hid up hyar in a hole in the rocks like a wolf
or a painter an' cz ef thar war a bounty on my
skelp."

" 'Tain't but fur a week — less 'n a week," she
urged.

" You uns don't keer — else ye wouldn't go,"
he said, dropping his voice, and all his heart was
in his eyes as he looked down at her.

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The Windfall

She had her moments of perspicacity. " Then
I won't go," she said, with the facile self-abnega-
tion of one who knows that the tendered sacrifice
will not be accepted.

He suddenly came from his negligent posture to
the perpendicular, tense and nervous. " Naw,
naw — I don't want that nuther," he protested as
she had expected.

" I 'lows ye don't rightly know whut 'tis ye do
want ! " she declared with an air of flouting
impatience.

"Yes, I do too — but I couldn't abide ez ye
should miss seein' the show — an' mebbe later in
the week I'll slip down, too."

A genuinely serious look usurped the feignings
of her face. " Better mind, Eujeemes," she ad-
monished him, " ye mought meet the sher'ff face
ter face in the street. He be well acquainted with
you uns — ye hev tole me that ! " She nodded her
head with an expression of dreary foreboding.

" Waal," he said desperately, but evidently
faint-hearted, " I could leave it ter men."

She looked at him in rising irritation, half
minded to withhold the remonstrance that she
knew he pined to hear. His own sense of pru-
dence made him yearn for an urgency of caution.
But she was yet vibrating with the unwonted ex-
citements of the afternoon, yet aglow with the
realisation of an admiration all unaccustomed in its
expression and its subject. She was well aware
that she had been considered a " powerful pretty

63

The Windfall

gal " throughout the countryside, and though the
small distorted surface of a cheap mirror afforded
no adequate reflection of her beauty, it was well-
pleasing to her untutored eye, and was called into
frequent consultation. But this popular repute
was an homage shared by a dozen other mountain
nymphs, and in more than one instance she was
surpassed in public esteem chiefly on account of
the tint of her red hair and the tiny freckles here
and there marring the exquisite fairness of her
face, despite all that baths of buttermilk and May
dew could compass.

The incense that the manager offered at her
shrine had a new and intoxicating flavour. It
was unique, for her alone. It was such as an
artist might feel at the first view of some fine
example of a great painter's work, or a virtuoso's
joy in the discovery amongst refuse lumber of a
genuine Cremona. She could not, of course,
discriminate the quality of his feeling, but she had
never seen a man's face kindle with that imper-
sonal fervour of delight which illumined his when
he looked at her dancing pose and listened to the
tones of her voice. She had begun to feel very
kindly toward one who made her feel so kindly
toward herself. Since she had discovered that her
father considered it impossible that he could be an
emissary of the revenue force seeking the moon-
shiner's lair, for which she had mistaken him when
she had so jealously guarded him to the house that
he might render an account of himself to the head

64

The Windfall

of the enterprise, she had given rein to her in-
terest in his personality; she had realised with a
sort of wondering pleasure the delicacy, the refine-
ment of the beauty of his face; her heart warmed
to the look in his eyes. She had now no doubts
of him; that universal attraction which his candid
nature seemed to exert on all the world had too
its influence on her. She had begun to entertain
a sort of veneration for him, his wide experience,
his evident singular knowledge of many things be-
yond her ken — with how few words he had
seemed to make her voice, even to her limited
comprehension, a different endowment, infinitely
sweeter, stronger, with added liberties of compass.
She longed even now to try the phrases which he
had inculcated, telling her to sing them at short
intervals and with due care, to assume her natural
beautiful dancing poses, which he had taught her
to accent for the greater effect.

The unknown vast world from which he had
come had evolved a sudden interest for her; here-
tofore she had not even bethought herself to be
aware of its existence, save as it now and again
spewed out the revenue force, with their sombre
menace, to be presently lost again in its unimagined
turmoils.

Her mind was full of speculations concerning
him. He was her first illustration of the grada-
tions of society; he seemed to her a person of vast
importance; she had a sort of reverence for the
splendours of his calling; he was a showman —

The Windfall

a part owner of the great enterprise whose " pic-
torial paper " he had spread upon the cabin floor,
and he had opened to her a world of wonders to
contemplate. Her beautiful eyes grew soft and
bright with the thought of him.

Her mind longed to follow the trend of these
new reflections. She was tired all at once of
Eugene Binley's woes. The injustice in his in-
carceration here in the moonshiner's den was itself
like the penance of imprisonment for a crime
of which he believed himself innocent. Yet in
putting the question to the test he risked more
than his liberty — his life itself was jeopardised.
His hard case had appealed to her woman's sym-
pathy— the future was dim, veiled, he might not
divine the issue of a day. He had had a certain
interest for her; he was of a more dashing per-
sonality than the duller men she had known. The
impulsive temperament that had lured him to his
doom had a quality that struck her fancy in dearth
of other attractions. He was quick, keen, fiery,
and he had a spark of imagination that imparted
warmth to others, bare and cold of mental attri-
butes. He had added to his more definite and
obvious troubles the aesthetic grief of falling des-
perately in love, and in a cautious and dubious way
she had responded. This was a sentimental result
of the privilege of shelter which Shadrach Pinnott
had not anticipated, and which he by no means
favoured. He had secured for the bare boon of
subsistence an additional stalwart worker at the

66

The Windfall

still, and one whose secrecy was pledged for the
best of reasons. That Eugene Binley could not
venture freely forth like the others, that he was
not subject, therefore, to disclose by inadvertence
in casual conversation the secrets of the trade,
since he saw no one not concerned in the illicit
manufacture, gave him an added value to his em-
ployer which Shadrach was not slow to appreciate.
More countenance than shelter and subsistence he
had no mind to afford him. Shadrach had taken
no steps, however, to balk the romance thus far.
He had some knowledge, perhaps, of the incon-
stancy of the feminine heart, and relied on this to
furnish in due time the solution of the problem,
or perhaps like many other people he merely post-
poned to a more convenient season the guessing of
the difficult riddle which circumstance had pro-
pounded. Hence, though he now and then glanced
askance at the lovers as they stood half in the
shadow of the stalagmite, and half in the thin
white light of the tallow dip, he said naught to
discourage the " f ool chin-choppin' ' ' as he de-
nominated their talk, thinking it« the course least
calculated to do harm. " Lovyers let alone will
quar'l enough tharselves ter fling 'em apart. A
peaceable disposed person needn't 'sturb hisself ter
start a contention jes' ter separate 'em," he argued
within himself.

" Leave it ter men ? " she was echoing Binley's
words dully. " I'd hate powerful ter leave any-
think ez I war took up with ter sech ez men."

The Windfall

She gazed speculatively about the place, sud-
denly illumined with a preternatural brilliancy as
Daniel Pinnott flung open the furnace door. All
the white colonnades were a-glister with myriads
of sparkling points of light. Far, far down the
shadowy reaches of the cave they were visible now,
with stately arches marking the confines of other
and further chambers, unexplored perhaps and of
an undemonstrated vastness. The light brought
into evidence that peculiar incrustation of the walls
of limestone caverns which takes the semblance of
flowers, the rough projections seeming roses, lilies
wrought in the rock, the similitude being so exact
that here and there a flower can be found as per-
fect of symmetry as if carved by the chisel of a
cunning workman. Glimpsed through one of the
lofty arches the depending stalactites in a heavy
group might have suggested to a cultivated
imagination a great chandelier of imposing pro-
portions and thus have heightened the semblance
to some stately hall, the audience chamber of a
sovereign, the throne-room of the buried splen-
dours of some forgotten magic monarchy. The
limitations of Clotilda's experience and mental
scope forbade the fancy, but the uncouth forms of
the distillers with their slouching shadows, their
big hats, -their bent postures, their dull lack-lustre
faces, their grotesque gestures, gnome-like at their
work, seemed indeed at variance with this scene of
weird beauty, and little suggestive of those higher

68

The Windfall

attributes of justice, of acumen, of perspicacity.
" I'd sure hate ter leave it ter men."

It was the subject in all the world of paramount
importance to him, and he was eagerly ready for
the discussion of its phases anew. Every point
they had often canvassed together with the keen-
ness of a vital mutual interest, and there was
naught new to urge. But as he shifted his weight,
though still leaning against the pillar, and brought
his brows together in a dubitating frown and be-
gan, " Waal, now," — she suddenly revolted from
the theme. Her mind, her heart were elsewhere.
She hastily interrupted — " Of course, though, it's
jes' ez ye think. Mebbe it would be best, arter
all, ter leave it ter men."

Adversity is said to be of vast moral value in
the discipline of the heart; it is a whetstone to the
wits as well. Eugene Binley caught all the sense
of dismissal that was in her mind as it uncon-
sciously, insistently reached out for the new
thoughts that surged upon it. He was cut to the
soul. All that he had was at stake, his liberty,
his life, or — if this unavailing seclusion were gratu-
itous— his restoration to the free, independent,
.open walks of existence. A terrible doubt be-
set him. Did she indeed care no longer? Had
she ever cared — or was it but an idle whim in
default of more serious interest that had lured his
heart from him? He could not judge. His head
was in a whirl. But remonstrance might avail

iThe Windfall

naught. It was the fact that impressed his mind.
He had surprised the revolt of her sentiment — it
had been a momentary illumination like that of
the open furnace door, now clashed close again,
leaving the cave to its dull shadow, the far reaches
of dense blackness through distant arches, the dim
pure white radiance of the tallow dip, the subdued
scintillations of the stalagmitic colonnades, the dull
rotund glister of the copper still, the vermicular
suggestions of the worm coiled up in the condenser,
the intense line of vivid white light that defined
the lower edge of the furnace door, the metal
fitting ill to the masonry, and thus giving a glimpse
of the roaring fire within. Clotilda had turned
her face upward toward Eugene Binley, as if wait-
ing for him to speak, but there was within it no
light of interest, only dull attention.

He tried the experiment deliberately. " Oh, we
uns can't make no decision now, short off; we uns
hev been along that road many a time ; but we don't
often hev news in the mountings. Tell me su'thin'
more 'bout the show an* that thar showman."

Her face was suddenly irradiated.
* You uns never hearn the beat in all yer life,"
she said, her eyes dilated and her head nodding
to one side, with pride and delight. " He sung
sweeter than any mawkin' bird, but he said ter
me, * Lydy, ef ye'll permit me ter say it,' " — she
imitated Lloyd's grave, circumspect manner, " * it's
a monstious pity fur yer rare voice an' yer 'strodi-
nary grace in dancin' ter be wasted hyar in this

7°

The Windfall

wilderness — would ye consider a proposition ter
puffawm in public? '

She bent forward in such a pretty reverential
bow that Tom Pinnott, lying on a pile of sacks of
grain, — his shoulder was still lame, and he rested
it at close intervals, — called out to the others:

" Look-a-yander at Clotildy. She air mawkin'
the stranger-man. It's the very moral o' the

critter."

Binley had a vague realisation of the grinning
of half a dozen sets of great tobacco-browned
teeth among the group that sat around the furnace,
perched on kegs or inverted baskets, or sacks o'f
grain. His head was unsteady. His heart beat
tumultuously. He hardly knew what was this
obsession that had enthralled him. Jealousy he
had felt ere this in minor matters, but he had so
little conception of the strength of the passion that
now, when it grappled with him, he did not
recognise it.

" I went straight an' axed dad ef I mought,"
Clotilda resumed, a little thread of continuous
laughter trickling through her words, like a rivulet
that cannot stay its joyous course. " I tuk dad
out on the porch 'cause he blates so loud whenst
he talks — an' fust he said naw, and then when
he 'membered 'bout sellin' whisky ter the crowd
on the quiet in that dry town, and that folks would
'low ez the family war thar jes' ter view me sing
an' dance an' not ter sell moonshine, it 'peared ter
him a powerful good excuse ter go."

K*

The Windfall

" Hop light, ladies," sang out Tom, who had
a powerful organ in his own deep chest.

But Clotilda put her hands to her ears with a
grimace of pain. " I never wants ter hear no
other man sing — that stranger's voice was like —
like honey. 'Twar so — sweet — soundin'."

Her pensive lids drooped above her great bright
eyes and she gave a shuddering little sigh, as if
the ecstatic remembrance were fraught with an
appreciated pain.

Old Shadrach Pinnott had a sudden monition
of business. " That's a fac', boys," he said, taking
his pipe from his mouth, " every durned imp of
ye mus' be at the tent ter hear Clotildy puffawm
— 'tis the reason folks mus' understand why we
uns all waggon down ter Colb'ry. Mam'll go,
an' A'minty an' the baby, all o' we uns will go,
an' nobody on yearth would suspicion ez we uns
kem fur ennything else than ter hear an' see Clo-
tildy sing an' dance in a public puffawmance."

He puffed his pipe for a few minutes while the
others gave varying growls of more or less reluc-
tant acquiescence as they accorded or disagreed
with his view of the importance of their appear-
ance as spectators on the occasion. He possibly
discriminated this note of dissent, for he remarked
presently — " It air sure a powerful oncommon
happening — I reckon Clotildy will be the fust
mounting gal that ever sung an' danced in a show
tent."

" An' she ought ter be the las'," said Daniel
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The Windfall

Pinnott sourly. He was the conservative one of
the sons, a settled married man, and he had the
married man's insistent convictions as to the pro-
priety of demeanour and decorous home-abiding
fitting for the female sex. He remembered, too,
the reach of the long arm of the Revenue Depart-
ment. Though a volcano may be silent, sleeping,
the hot heart of the crater burns with an inextin-
guishable fire. He did not venture to openly
oppose the determination of the paternal auto-
crat, but he had done his utmost to dissuade the
enterprise.

The elder man made no direct rejoinder, but he
nevertheless combated this spirit of negation.
" Colb'ry hev been mighty dry — sence it's been a
dry town," he said significantly, speaking with his
pipe in the corner of his mouth. " I reckon
folkses' throats thar air about ez dry ez a lime-
burner's kiln."

The younger moonshiners eyed the dissentient
Daniel with a degree of rancour. " I'll be bound
they'll nose out our waggon powerful quick," said
Tom. "We'll sell a deal o' liquor, else I'm
mightily s'prised."

Old Shadrach nodded assentingly.

u It'll take a heap o' liquor ter git a prohibition
town soaked through an' through. We uns hev
got a week though ter finish the business. The
Street Fair will show fur a week."

" An' I'm ter sing an' dance twict every day,"
cried Clotilda delightedly. She had listened to

73

The Windfall

the colloquy of the group around the still with a
very definite anxiety lest from Daniel's doubts and
remonstrances a final abandonment of the project
ensue. She now leaned her fluffy auburn head
back against the great stalagmite and laughed with
a renewal of zest and cheer as she cast up her eyes
at Eugene Binley, who still stood beside her look-
ing loweringly down at her.

There was something so aloof, so smitten, yet
so menacing in his eyes that her elated spirits sud-
denly collapsed. It suggested the frightful pathos
of a savage animal, sorely wounded and suffering,
yet with an unabated ferocity. The very look
numbed her joy.

" I be powerful sorry ez you uns can't be thar
ter see me," she declared falteringly, suddenly
drawn back from her soft conceits of anticipation
to this sullen reality.

" Oh, I'll be thar," he protested with a forlorn
lame joviality.

" Eujeemes will be afeared ez Clotildy will be
gittin' merried ter some o' them town men whilst
he be hid out in the mountings. I reckon other
folks will be streck all of a heap with her puf-
fawmin' jes the same ez that thar stranger-man,"
Tom observed as he lay at length.

Tom had but the primitive processes of mind
and feeling. He possessed no cultivated sensi-
bilities either for himself or for others, and even
his perceptions of policy were rudimentary. The
old man, the exemplar of all the distillers, by virtue

74

The Windfall

of his age, his experience, his patriarchal position,
struck in abruptly with a sharp reproof.

" Ain't you uns got no better sense an1 showin',
Tawmmy, than ter be settin' out so brash ter talk
'bout things that ye dunno nuthin' 'bout? Clo-
tildy ain't goin' ter be allowed ter marry nobody
till she's twenty, an' she hev now jes' turned
eighteen."

" Twenty! " exclaimed Clotilda with a sudden
revival of interest. " Why, I'll feel so old whenst
I'm twenty that I reckon I'll hev ter walk with a
stick by then."

"Like the stranger-man do now," cried Tom,
the irrepressible. He sprang up and took a few
erratic steps along the aisle of the arcade, twirling
an imaginary cane, now flinging it jauntily up into
the air, now striking it with emphasis on the
ground, but a sudden twinge in his lame shoulder
gave him pause. He stopped short, with a
grimace of pain, seeking to put his hand to it, and
then he came heavily enough back to the furnace
and sank down on his improvised couch of sacks
of grain. " He air a better man than you uns —
he downed you uns, Tawmmy," Clotilda ex-
claimed with such obvious pleasure and pride in
the stranger's prowess that Shadrach Pinnott was
minded to take reluctant account of the cloud that
lowered on the brow of Eugene Binley.

" Shucks," he said contemptuously, " that war
jes' sleight o' hand. Them show folks hev 1'arned
tricks that take the eye. He ain't no spunky

75;

The Windfall

fighter sech ez — sech ez — waal, sech ez Eujeemes
thar fur instance."

There was a momentary pause, broken only by
the muffled roar of the flames of the furnace fire
and the trickle of the doublings dropping down
from the worm into the keg below.

* You boys mus' be powerful cautious," Sha-
drach Pinnott presently remarked with a serious
thought. "You uns mus' n't talk foolish an' wild.
Course Eujeemes ain't got no notion, sure enough,
o' goin' ter Colb'ry ter see the show." He hesi-
tated, then spoke plainly and to the point. " I
don't want no man along o' me that the sher'ff air
lookin' fur." He paused expectant of reassurance.

" I knows that," Eugene Binley answered with
a lowering brow.

Shadrach Pinnott expected him to say more. His
face, with the pallor that is the concomitant of
red hair, bleached yet more by his indoor occupa-
tion, was turned with ghastly effect toward the
young man who still stood with the girl beside the
column. The moonshiner's eyebrows were insist-
ently raised; his eyes had a pointed interrogation;
his lips had fallen apart in the stress of immediate
anticipation, his mouth showing like a dark hollow
in the midst of his great red beard. The pause
continued unbroken.

The sound of gentle purling was distinct in the
silence. The dripping of the ardent spirits from
the worm was hardly to be distinguished from the
ripple of the rill of water in the troughs led down

The Windfall

from one of the subterranean springs to its mission
of utility in the condenser and the big burly mash
tubs, or the occasional irregular trickling from the
roof of the drops with their solution of lime
charged with the building of the fantastic archi-
tecture of the cavern.

" The sheriff hain't got no call ter meddle with
moonshine," Shadrach Pinnott was forced to re-
sume at length. " But ef he war ter hev reason ter
s'arch my outfit fur law-breakers agin the State
he'd find the liquor an' word would be tuk ter the
marshal."

Eugene had his own sullen grievances. He was
still a free agent, but at that moment no vague
intention of sharing the moonshiners' venture into
Colbury had entered his mind. To him it seemed
like putting his head into the lion's jaws. He had
nevertheless winced from the perception of their
carelessness as to his safety, when he had remon-
strated against the risks of the expedition which
might rebound upon him, and almost equally from
their wanton taunts. Now he was indisposed to
reassure them in their turn, to set their minds at
rest as to the dangers which his presence in Col-
bury might bring down on them. He said naught,
and for the nonce Shadrach Pinnott was at a
loss.

By some filial intuition Clotilda divined the
emergency, for she was hardly so versed in the
exigencies of the hazardous law-breaking vocation
as to appreciate it of her own initiative.

77

•The Windfall

" I dunno whut you uns mean by sayin' ye would
see me at the show," she said in a low voice.
" Jes' now ye war tryin' ter torment me by talkin'
'bout being hid out like a wolf or su'thin' wild."

A casual conversation was in progress amongst
the group beside the furnace. Binley lowered his
voice to the key of her own. " Do that torment
you uns, Honey-sweet? " he asked, lured anew.

She silently cast a glance of reproach at him.
Her face was so beautiful with this expression of
upbraiding protest — it needed but this touch of
sentiment to lift it into the grade of the truly ex-
quisite. He should have been touched by the
embellishment which a thought of grief for him
had wrought upon it. But he remembered in that
moment the stranger's admiration. Doubtless as
she looked at him she was conscious of its charm;
she gauged its power upon his poor unstable melt-
ing heart. All the fascination of her youthful
loveliness was no longer a sealed book to her. She
had been apprised of its worth even for a public
performance. She was now exerting it con-
sciously to make and keep him subject, not to her
whim alone, but to bend him to the iron rule of
the crafty Shadrach. Eugene Binley loved her
after his fashion, but it was not that high, sacri-
ficial passion that annuls self, and fosters faith, and
blinds sober reason. If, as he suspected, she
loved him no longer; if so soon, so lightly he was
supplanted in her heart; if no more his great and
troublous trials absorbed her pity and her sym-

The Windfall

pathy, the consciousness would work a metamor-
phosis in his sentiment. His tenderness would be
replaced by revenge; his admiration would resolve
itself into contumely; his mistaken faith would
evolve deceit. Already on the mere suspicion he
was meeting craft with craft. Her upbraiding
eyes encountered a look as languishingly adoring
as if no divination of her motive informed it, as
if this restive, alert, exacting creature were wholly
and hopelessly her own. " I 'lowed I'd see you
uns — I never said nuthin' ez I knows on 'bout
you uns seein' me."

He pushed his hat back on his long, chestnut
hair and looked down at her with his large brown
eyes luminously watchful as if to minutely descry
the effect of his words.

The fascination of the new vista opening in
her restricted life, so wide, so long, so variously
flowered to one who knew naught heretofore but
the woodpile and the cow pen and the treadle of
the loom, filled her every faculty. She longed to
be still, to think; she could scarcely affect interest
in the distinction he made in his speech — that he
should see her but she should1 not see him — she
was eager to have the preparations for the sortie
to the cove fairly under way. Nevertheless with
the realisation of furthering the moonshiner's
plans she kept the wily fish in play.

"What be you uns talkin' 'bout? I reckon I
could see you uns ef ye could see me? " she asked,
pulling at the strings of dark red beads falling

79

The Windfall

down over the bosom of her light blue cotton
gown.

As he shook his head to and fro smiling enig-
matically she was so weary of him and his mys-
teries that the listlessness of her effort at interest
could not be kept from her face, and might in
itself have intimated her state of mind had he not
already suspected it. She bent her face downward
as if to escape too close a scrutiny while still,
fixedly smiling, he studied its contour.

" I 'lowed ef ye went off an' lef me 'twould
plumb kill me, Puddin'-pie," he averred.

" Oh, shucks," she exclaimed, bending her head
to pleat a fold of her gown with affected em-
barrassment.

" An' I 'lowed I'd follow ye, ef I war dead,
ez I would of choice while alive; I'd follow ye —
an' though ye wouldn't see me my ghost would see
you uns."

Her fingers were suddenly still; she looked up
at him with a sort of surprised repulsion. His
smile was as if petrified on his face.

"Oh, don't," she cried with a chilly disgust.
" Ef you uns war dead 'twould be the eend of all
on y earth fur you uns."

" How so? — thar is more than we kin see right
hyar in this cave."

He took a sort of perverse pleasure in her start
of trepidation, in her shuddering doubtful glance
over her shoulder down the dim unexplored re-
cesses of the cavern. The furnace door was open

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The Windfall

now ; the fire was to be let to die out, preliminary to
the stoppage of the work incident on the trip to
Colbury. The beds of live coals cast a wide suf-
fusive light through the spacious, lofty hall wherein
they stood; the troglodytic group of distillers still
sat by the dwindling fire. Through several of the
great arches she could see other vast apartments,
all dimly white and with a subdued glister in
the far-reaching light. Further still were vague
spaces, shadowy and grey, and at the vanishing
point of the perspective dusky corridors led to
densely black recesses, harbouring who might
know what, besides bats by millions and night birds
that crept in through some crevice for shelter from
the glare of the day. Even now a screech-owl was
beginning to send forth its shrill cry ere it sought
the outer air and the dim night, and the keen, quav-
ering notes of ill-omen roused all the weird sug-
gestions of the echoes.

" You needn't be afeared, Honey-sweet," he
said absently, " Ye won't see me, but I'll see you

uns."

There was a pause in which she hardly can-
vassed what to say — so doubtful, so ill at ease
was she.

And in that interval a strange possibility had
revealed itself to him which he canvassed swiftly
with flying thoughts. His cheeks glowed ; his wild,
restless eyes were ablaze; his breath was quick; he
still gazed steadfastly at her as she gazed half
affrighted at the familiar subterranean environ-

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The Windfall

fnent dulling gradually as the coals faded and the
ash gathered, dulling like the vanishing scene of
a dream. He hardly saw her; his every faculty
was enlisted in a new theme. It was only me-
chanically that he repeated thickly, slowly, like the
ill-fashioned words of a somnambulist, " You uns
needn't be feared. Ye won't see me, but I'll see
you uns."

82'

CHAPTER tt

WHEN Hilary Lloyd in a flutter of
enthusiasm detailed to his partner the
fact that he had found a charming
new attraction Haxon lowered indifferent He
felt that the show was already good enough for
all reasonable purposes.

" I had rather hear that you have found trans-
portation," Haxon said sourly.

" It may help to the same thing," Lloyd argued,
bent on keeping up his own and his confrere's
spirits. " It may draw more of the country folks.
There's a kind of interest in seein' one's own sort
perform — if the thing is well done."

As Lloyd went about the square the next day,
alert, ready, seeming so capable, so entirely at
ease mentally, the flagging spirits of the members
of the company were recruited by his cheerful
presence, and their secret troublous fears of a des-
perate stranding in this out-of-the-way corner of
the world were exorcised.

It was indeed an humble cause in which to wage
so hard-fought a battle. The hopeless courage,
the gallant temper, the ingenious expedients, the
hearty strivings might have graced a higher plane
of achievement. He kept his smiling face, his
quiet, serene manner, his courteous suavity to

The Windfall

strangers, his unruffled placidity with his em-
ployees as uninfluenced as if he did not behold in
the immediate future the ghastly vision of the com-
plete collapse and rout of his little force, over-
whelmed by a pitiless and grotesque fate. It was
ever with him, predominant in his mind. He
could not even look at the boa constrictor, which
he loathed, without the sardonic reflection how the
possession of the reptile would embarrass the
holders of the mortgage which their earlier dis-
asters had placed on all the portable property of
the show. He had a sensitively organised nature,
and it was a positive grief to him that Haxon could
not meet their mutual misfortunes in the spirit of
good comradeship. Haxon had protested that he
did not hold his partner accountable for their
beclouded prospects in this last move ; nevertheless
his sullen disaffection, his lowering silence, his deep
aversion to the place and people, his despair that
he could formulate no plan of getting away, added
a thousand fold to the normal difficulties of the
situation, bereft Lloyd of advice and the sense of
support, and magnified his fears by the reflection
of another's. Lloyd was but a strolling showman,
yet he braced his nerves like a soldier in the last
charge of a forlorn hope. All smartly groomed
as he was, he lent a hand to every need that
became pressing as the morning wore on and the
preparations for opening the Fair neared com-
pletion. He whisked a brisk brush in the letter-
ing of an unfinished sign, while the painter who

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was one of the clowns in a pantomime " turn "
must needs run to paint his face. He wielded a
hammer in driving down a tent-peg which the
straining of the wind in yesterday's storm had
loosened in the ground. He personally super-
vised the unfurling of the flag and eyed it with
a pose of glad satisfaction as it rose to the tip of
the tall staff and floated out buoyantly to the soft
breeze. He called the bandmaster to account
while the instruments were in process of tuning,
and himself made sure of a perfect accord, for he
had a fine ear. When the first tones of the blaring
melody issued upon the air as the military figures
with their brazen instruments and tawdry uniforms
marched out to make the circuit of the square no
one could have divined — as he stood on the side-
walk and watched the pigmy effort at pageant, —
the turmoil of emotion in his heart, his racking
pity for them, for all the employees, for himself
and his partner; his keen sense of responsibility
that cut him like a knife ; his bruised and desperate
hope; his trampled and abased and writhing
pride; his awful doubts of the future — oh, that
the veil might be lifted one moment, whatever the
Gorgon face revealed! Now and again he heard
his name spoken as a magnate and celebrity, and
was aware that he was pointed out by the denizens
of the town to the country folk who had waggoned
in to see the show. Certain of the citizens, who had
affected to think slightingly of him and his enter-
prise, were not above sharing the prestige of his

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The Windfall

notoriety, and the distinction conferred by his
acquaintance in the estimation of these rural
wights.

These spectators were few, however, chiefly
heavy, jeans-clad worthies with their sunbonneted
helpmeets, and leading by the hand a goodly dele-
gation of tow-headed olive branches. They all
seemed disposed to circle, inquisitively staring,
about the tents; not one had yet passed a ticket-
seller's wicket. The very signs were alluring to
their unaccustomed eyes — the picture of the boa
constrictor had a horrifying fascination to a fam-
ily group who had brought up motionless in front
of it, the paterfamilias, chin-whiskered, loose-
jointed, his jaws slowly working on his quid of
tobacco, his shoulders bent, shortening the set of
his brown coat in the back, his knees crooked,
drawing the trousers to a generous display of
wrinkled, blue yarn socks, a child of two years
poised on his elbow, an elder one holding to his
hand, two more clinging to his coat tails and the
last acquisition, an infant, in its mother's arms.

" M'ria, M'ria," the man exclaimed wildly, " do
you uns reckon fur sure that thar sarpient, whut's
pictured thar, air actially inside that tent? "

His wife shifted her snuff-brush in her mouth
to permit enunciation. " I hope ter the powers
they hev got him tied," she rejoined.

Had the worthy couple monopolised the inter-
est of speculation they might have remained
indefinitely spellbound, exchanging sapient conjec-

86

The Windfall

tures concerning the snake, but one of the children
piped up suddenly with that juvenile proclivity for
the unanswerable. "What be his name, dad?"
and the rest instantly chorused — " What be his
name?"

" Dunno — the pictur' don't say," the man re-
plied slowly.

This omission might seem a fatal oversight on
the part of the managers, but the show had jour-
neyed half over the continent with no sense of
aught lacking until a juvenile patron from Persim-
mon Cove pounced upon the void and would not
be denied.

"What be his name?" he cried in the pangs
of desperate curiosity, and the others demanded
in shrill unison — "What be his name? What be
his name? "

" Dunno — let's go in, M'ria, an' ax his name,"
the head of the family suggested with a frenzied
gleam of temerity in his eyes, and, as the spieler
at the door saw them approach, he lifted his horn
and began to shrill, " Here's Isaac. Come in, come
in. He eats 'em — he eats 'em alive," so close
on the heels of the plump infant delegation, that
it might have suggested cannibalistic tendencies to
those uninitiated in the ways of street fairs.

The band, having finished its tour of the square,
changed the march to a potpourri of popular airs,
and then ensued an interval weighted with silence
after the surcharge of sound, when the people
began to gather expectantly along the sidewalks;

The Windfall

the merchants and clerks left their wares, and
stood in doorways or clustered at gaze in second-
story windows; the porches and casements of the
courthouse were crowded with feminine faces and
pretty attire, the society element of Colbury having
gathered to this point of vantage from the remoter
residence portion of the town. All the air was
a-tingle with a nervous sense of expectation.

Lloyd, the victim of suspense, stood on the side-
walk in front of the principal store. Now and
then he took off his brown straw hat and fanned
with it, his light-brown hair shining in the sun.
The pink flush in his cheek had deepened ; his long
dark eyelashes occasionally rose and fell with a
nervous quiver, but otherwise naught betokened
the stress of excitement with which he laboured.
He did not notice that he had become a mark for
the gaze of the village belles on the courthouse
balcony — so handsome a man necessarily attracted
attention, and the special smartness of the cut of
his fawn-tinted suit, his russet brown shoes, the
brown four-in-hand tie, and a pink wild aster in
his buttonhole differentiated him from the jeans-
clad rural visitors, from the clerks of Colbury,
and the sedate, black-coated, elderly merchants.
The sunlight had that singularly burnished rich-
ness characteristic of the last days of summer; a
yearning languor of dreams ; a longing for repose.
A sense of impending rest was in the atmosphere.
The shadows were sharp and clearly defined.
Far away he could see the blue mountains quiver

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The Windfall

through the heated air. Nearer at hand they
were purple and bronze and deeply green, with
here and there on their slopes the sombre shadow
of a dazzlingly white cloud, floating high in the
sky. He marked how radiant was the fact, how
dark and gruesome the similitude to the eye
looking only to the earth, and he was vaguely
aware of dispensations in life that this resembled.
The landscape was cleft in twain by the glittering
line of the river, held in deep-channelled, clifty
banks, and the circumference of the Ferris Wheel
framed the whole, seen through its great circle.

Hardly a movement disturbed the eager expect-
ancy of the crowd gathered in the square; the
cries of the spielers were hushed; the peanut
roasters, the candy-stands had ceased to vend their
wares; the groups attracted by the pictures of the
freaks no longer stood to stare; the merry-go-
round was still — all waited in blank patience the
great sensation of the day. When the band,
grouped about the tall mast near the centre of the
place, burst forth suddenly with the first sonorous
measures of an inspiring melody there was a gal-
vanic thrill as of panic or turmoil throughout the
press. A young mule that was new to town and
town ways, hitched to the courthouse fence, had
borne much exacerbation of nerves that morning
in sights hitherto undreamed of, in sounds terrify-
ing and unexplained; he found in this blare of
trumpets under his confiding nose the extremest
limits of his endurance. He gave one tremendous

The Windfall

bound, burst his halter, scattered the meeker pal-
freys about him, that snorted in scandalised dis-
may at his conduct, and struggled only to get out
of his way, as he galloped through the crowds and
across the square, knocking down several men as
he passed, and set out at a breakneck speed on the
road to the mountains. His owner gazed discon-
solately after him, while the half-affrighted crowd
recovered its composure in a guffaw at his expense ;
then, as he muttered philosophically, " Waal, at
that gait he'll soon be home," he addressed him-
self anew to the waiting expectancy, regardless of
the problem of transportation which his own dis-
mounted condition presented.

The band, disregarding the commotion, still
flung forth its brazen blare of melody, and sud-
denly a presence threaded the crowd, which every
neck was craned to view. A man, bare-headed in
the sun, clad showily in pink satin, slashed with
dark red, and pink silk tights, with the deft tread
of one shod elastically, was passing through the
press. Only once Lloyd had a glimpse of the fig-
ure long familiar to him, though to have seen
Haxon only in street clothes one could never have
recognised Captain Ollory of the Royal Navy. As
he began to climb the mast, stepping lightly,
swiftly, surely, from one steel spike to another, he
became visible to the whole assemblage, and, un-
used to the accepted methods of applause, a cry
of gratulation that was half a guffaw of delight
broke forth. The acrobat, without the immediate

90

The Windfall

contrast with taller men, seemed of fair height,
and the muscle that was suggestive of undue
stoutness in his ordinary garb, showed now in full
play and athletic symmetry in the thin, elastic
silk covering of limbs and arms. He went speedily
to the top, and stepped with a deft lightness upon
the board that surmounted it, a pitiful square, not
more than eighteen inches in compass. He stood
for a moment at full height above the quivering
and astonished crowd — higher than the tip of the
Ferris wheel, higher than the courthouse tower.
The band, playing resolutely on, smote keenly
vibrant nerves with a sense of discordance. One
of the amazed rural spectators, agonised with the
strain of the sensation, called out sharply, " Hi,
somebody, can't ye make them dad-burned hawns
an' accordions quit blating? "

Lloyd glanced keenly about, but the voice could
not be located in the crowd. He deprecated aught
that might tend to shake Haxon's nerve, aught
unexpected, disagreeable, jarring in the stress of
the crisis. He knew how far removed from the
actualities was the gallant aspect of that richly-
bedight figure, the bonhomie of the smile and
flourish of salutation from the frightful perch to
the humming crowd below. He knew that the
realisation of risking life and limb for a meagre
stipend that meant bare subsistence was daunting
enough to the bravest, but to court this jeopardy
for naught, for the amusement of a scanty cluster
of country bumpkins, was revolting to any sane

The Windfall

man. He remembered anew the cynical saying
that the spectators gather to see the acrobat killed,
not to witness his triumph, and then came back to
him Haxon's sullen complaint this morning that
his " turn " was absolutely without compensation
— he was convinced that not one-third of the rural
crowd would pay their way into a tent. The ex-
ternal aspects and the " high dive," necessarily
an outdoor performance and a free show, would
satisfy their curiosity, without enriching the ex-
chequer of the street fair company. This state of
mind was a poor preparation for Haxon's difficult
feat, for it was indeed extra-hazardous, and in
several towns in which they had exhibited its repe-
tition had been forbidden by the authorities.

Lloyd was made aware by the shudder, the sibi-
lance of the shivering crowd that the acrobat had
moved, and he glanced up wincingly from under
his hat-brim. Haxon had stooped; he was now
in a sitting posture, his feet dangling over the
depths below, and the little flat square of wood
supporting his weight. He slowly drew from a
pocket a large handkerchief, deliberately folded it,
and bound it around his eyes, tying it hard and
fast at the back of his head. Then, thus blind-
folded, he sat on his precarious perch for a mo-
ment, dangling his shapely, muscular legs in their
pink silk tights. As he started to rise from his
posture, a feminine voice from the balcony of the
courthouse cried out hysterically: " Oh, make him
come down — don't let him be blindfolded ! "

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The Windfall

and there ensued a twitter of derision and admo-
nition among her companions, with gay raillery
that she should show herself so " very green."

As Lloyd glanced back at the acrobat, he saw
that what Haxon called the business of the " turn "
was in progress, and, familiar with it though he
was, affected, as he knew it to be, the sight of it
made him wince now and sent cold thrills of ter-
ror down his spine. The acrobat, clumsily, uncer-
tainly, with all the hesitant motions of the blind,
slowly sought to rise, to get his feet once more on
the square board on which he now sat. He lifted
the ball of one heel to the verge, and sat there
thus crouched in dubitation; then slowly, quak-
ingly he achieved a stooping attitude and at last
rose unsteadily to his feet, gropingly holding out
his hands, now this way, now that, as if he were
doubtful on which side of the mast was the reser-
voir of water below% There was no need of these
feints to heighten the temerity of the feat, and
Lloyd had always deprecated them. The realism
of this affectation of fright, of uncertainty, of
hesitation, was so great that its quiver seemed
possible to be communicated to the nerves in
serious earnest.

Suddenly the acrobat drew himself to his
wonted erectness. He stood, for a moment, mo-
tionless. Then he leaped, or rather stepped out
into the air, still conserving a standing posture;
he turned on his back in the instant of descending,
and, with an incredible precision of aim, fell into

93

The Windfall

the centre of the tank of water, the impact send-
ing up jets in every direction and spattering the
cheering crowd.

All was laughter and good-humour. As the
round sleek head and the pink doublet, slashed
with red, reappeared clambering over the sides of
the reservoir half a dozen brawny arms were
stretched forth to help the acrobat out. But he
sprang lightly past, dripping like a seal, caught a
water-proof overcoat from an attendant's hands,
slipped it on, and walking with that peculiar deft-
ness appertaining to light, elastic chaussure, his
calves and ankles in their pink tights presenting
a comical contrast to the overcoat as his feet pro-
truded below, he took his way through the crowd,
along the pavement, and in the direction of the
village hotel.

Lloyd drew a long sigh of relief. This was
well enough so far — but he ha*d an awful premoni-
tion that for some reason some day Haxon's nerve
would fail him. That accurate judgment of dis-
tances would prove at fault. He would miss his
calculation by some inconsiderable fraction, and
instead of dropping on the elastic surface of the
buoyant water he would fall on the edge of the
tank, on his back and break it, or on his skull and
crush it. This was a life to lead, Lloyd said to
himself, a life to lead, but God be thanked its
chief trial was over for the day at all events. His
consciousness was sore and bruised. He tried to
pluck up heart of grace. The sound of the

94

The Windfall

spielers' cries affected him like the commonplace
consolations of awakening at the end of a dreadful
dream. When he went down to the reservoir he
found the groups near it discussing the narrow
margin between success and a heart-rending
disaster.

" Ef he hed jes' curved a mite to the right or
the lef his spine would hev been splinters," one
voiced the opinion of all.

Lloyd was ordering some heavy planks to be
laid across the huge trough, the water being some
eight feet deep.

" Whut's that fur?" a surly wight demanded,
being compelled to give place for the proceeding.

" Some of these underfoot children might come
here when nobody is looking and drown them-
selves."

The man looked at him with a clearing brow.
" Fur sech resky folks ez ye 'pear ter be ye air
toler'ble fore-thoughted," he said approvingly.

Taking his way back to the sidewalk Lloyd was
accosted by an elderly merchant. " The best of
your show seems to be free," he said sourly. He
had earlier taken occasion to gird at the fair; it
was a hindrance rather than a help to trade; it
was a novelty, a noisy intrusion, a foolish enter-
prise, a predestined failure, and he could make no
compact of toleration with it. u You ought to
remember that thanks are not profits."

" They have no market value, but they are
mighty pleasant," returned Lloyd.

The Windfall

" This ain't a paying crowd," the merchant cast
his eye disparagingly about. " If business don't
improve you and your company won't more than
make your keep here." He seemed bent on
" rubbing it in."

" We would be glad to do that," said Lloyd
in excellent temper. " We thought it was a big-
ger town — what there is of it seems to be dandy,
— and we thought there would be a more populous
vicinity. But because we have made a mistake
there is no use in sitting down with our finger in
our mouth. We are going to give every attrac-
tion straight along just as if we were playing to
big money."

The sour old man looked hard at the man-
ager; he would fain maintain his caustic admoni-
tions, his disparaging criticism. He hated folly
in all its forms; but commercially he felt it to be
wicked. A man who wasted money, or fooled it
away, he deemed a criminal, albeit not liable to
the law. Nevertheless he was mollified in spite
of himself.

" Gray," he said to his head clerk, " put up the
shutters. All the clerks may go to the fair —
and the porter, too — pay his way. We can't do
business with this torn-fool street fair gyrating
before the door, and we don't want all these hill-
billies standing around the counters squirting to-
bacco juice all over the stock, between the times
that they go out to stare-gaze the pictures on the
signs. / won't house 'em. If they want to see

The Windfall

the fair let 'em drop their nickel in the slot, and
get the worth of their money."

The closing of this, the principal store in the
town, was followed by the placing of other shut-
ters in show windows and the fastening of doors.
The chaffering at the counters thus ceasing, the
idlers were turned into the street, and here the
wiles of the spielers caught them, and soon the
ticket takers were busy making change. The tent
of "Isaac" was thronged; it is amazing the fas-
cination that the repulsive exerts on the unculti-
vated mind. Old and young, men, women, and
children, yearned with curiosity to see him " eat
'em alive," and a steady procession went in and
came out in various stages of gratified disgust.
When it was announced that the boa constrictor
would be fed on chickens there was a rush for
the horrid spectacle, and for a time the peanut
roaster and candy stand were dreary and deserted.
Wick-Zoo, the wild man, who was caged, half clad
in skins, a repellent object of matted hair, and
long teeth, and wild eyes, who ran a few steps
hither and thither in the restricted limits of his
bars, uttering low moans varied now again by a
keen, shrill howl, was overwhelmed with visitors
until an unlucky episode created a panic amongst
them. A mountain woman, young, plump, black-
eyed, and with bright rosy cheeks hardly dis-
counted by her pink-checked cotton gown, put a
white dimpled hand inadvertently within the bars
as she held on to the cage to avoid the jostling of

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The Windfall

the crowd. It seemed unto Wick-Zoo good and
meet to make a demonstration toward the tempt-
ing member, and he rubbed his muzzle against
it with a jocosity hardly to be expected of a " wild
man from Borneo." He was of limited mental
endowment, as was natural, and had no prescience
of the awful uproar that ensued when the woman
screamed that he was snapping his terrible teeth
at her, and as she fell back upon the crowd the
tent of Wick-Zoo was nearly torn down upon his
devoted head before his admirers could fairly ex-
tricate themselves. Lloyd, hearing the clamour,
came hastily to the rescue, and as he entered the
deserted precincts the poor " wild man " hailed
him:

" Oh, Beaut, for the love of pity can't you
gimme a beer? I'm nigh smothered with thirst."

The happy turn of the tide, the eager desire to
make the best of every advantage, the prudent
monition that one day is not a week and that the
show must live up to its best possibilities, kept
Hilary Lloyd a very busy man that morning.

The first check to his hopes came when he en-
countered Clotilda Pinnott, arrived with all her
kith and kin in a big white-covered ox-waggon,
to redeem her promise to do a song-and-dance
" turn " at the Fair.

CHAPTER VI

r • ^HE manager did not at first recognise
the new star that had arisen in the firma-

-*- ment of the Street Fair, and this was no
great wonder. Clotilda Pinnott was standing quite
isolated near the intersection of one of the streets
with the public square. Near her was the great
waggon which had been thriftily utilised to take
advantage of the excursion, laden with an immense
number of fresh splint baskets presumably for
sale ; some were hanging all along the sides ; others
protruded from the white hood at the back; still
larger ones were glimpsed through the aperture of
the front. One of the team of red-and-white oxen
was yet afoot, steadily chewing his cud; the other,
unmindful of the diagonal tilt of the yoke which
he had thus pulled awry, had lain down on the
ground and sleepily eyed the square, with no ap-
parent perception in his dull bovine mind that its
aspect was more populous and animated than he
had beheld it of yore.

Some half dozen of the dogs had seen fit to
accompany this jaunting abroad of the family,
and naturally had furnished their own transporta-
tion. The pace at which the ox-team had travelled
had by no means taxed their brisk energies, but
the day was nearing the noon-tide, the September

99

The Windfall

sun was hot, and they too had seated themselves,
several under the shade of the waggon, and thence
with lolling tongues and small hot eyes they gazed
at the commotion, their intentness of observation
broken now and then by sudden snaps at flies, and
once one, with an air of indignant interruption,
dislocated every rule of canine symmetry in the
twist he gave his anatomy to get his teeth to bear
on the fleas that tormented him. Two evidently
had some joke between them, for without warning
they occasionally rushed jocosely at each other, the
bigger rolling the smaller over and over and tick-
ling and biting him, humorously growling the
while, till he whimpered hysterically aloud.

But the girl — Lloyd saw recognition in her eyes
which fixed his attention; then he paused to stare
wonderingly. u Why, what on earth have you
done to yourself?" he broke out in blunt amaze-
ment.

Ah, never, never could he have recognised the
classic grape-laden canephora of the orchard in
the figure that stood before him. Here, here was
true rusticity — the other a dream, a poem, some
materialised strain from the oaten reed of Theoc-
ritus. He had spoken to her then with the defer-
ence that befitted the personified poetry of her
presence. He now was not intentionally rude, but
he was stern, plain, determined. The artistic in-
terests of the promised " turn " were slaughtered.

" How 'd ever you make yourself such a jay? "
he cried in dismay.

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'The Windfall

Then he began to perceive in added surprise
that she fancied herself arrayed to strike the be-
holder with admiration and destroy the peace of
every man who looked upon her. She stared at
him with an amazement that matched his own, so
comprehensive that at first it gave no room for
anger. As the gradual realisation of objection be-
gan to redden her cheeks he made haste to call
some good-natured euphemism to his aid, for he
would not willingly hurt her feelings.

" Don't you know, child, that * beauty un-
adorned is adorned the most '? " he said. " Why
didn't you wear those togs you had on when I saw
you up in the mountains? "

"Them r-a-ags? " she drawled contemptuously,
and with a complacent hand she adjusted the folds
of her coarse brown and green mottled muslin,
that had at intervals a small egg-shaped pattern
in glaring white. It stood out from her heels like
a board, so stiffly was it starched. A row of big
black beads was around her throat. A yellow sun-
bonnet, lined with blue, hid all the grace of her
head and hair and showed only a moon-like con-
tour of face, and he wondered that he had not
before noticed her freckles. And then, worst of
all, her shoes. For now her feet were encased in
thick red yarn stockings and the stiffest of brogans,
several sizes too large.

Lloyd could scarcely stem the flood of despair
that surged about him, and the struggle was the
more desperate as he perceived how far afield was

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her complacent mental attitude from any con-
straint of comprehension. Could he ever make
her understand?

" You can't dance in them soap-boxes," he said
didactically. " Them shoes won't bend. You
can't do nothing but hop — and no bloke is going
to pay a red to see a lydy hop. Why didn't you
wear the old slippers you had on the other
day?"

" Was you uns thinkin' ez I'd 'pear so pore ez
ter dance in them old shoes? " she demanded with
a flash of the eyes and drawing up her figure with
dignity, but alack, a flash, however fiery, from out
the blue and yellow frills of the sunbonnet, and the
prideful pose of a form disguised by the angular
folds of the unyielding fabric that held the starch
so stiffly, lost all impressiveness in their disastrous
environment.

" I was thinking that same," he retorted un-
equivocally. He turned to her eldest brother, who
had just come up, followed at a little distance by
her staring father, and sought to reach here more
pliancy of receptivity. " Well, sport," he 'said
genially to Daniel Pinnott, " you see I wanted to
show a nymph of the orchard — such as dance
among the trees."

The jaws of both mountaineers fell. " When
did they dance, stranger? " they uneasily de-
manded in a breath, as if the mere idea of terpsi-
chorean intrusion among their trees had an in-
herent disquietude for them.

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The Windfall

" Oh, there's no such folks sure enough," Lloyd
made haste to explain. " People have pretended
that there were spirits of the trees and the like."
He hesitated; Shadrach Pinnott's eyes fixed in
stultified wonderment on his face were disconcert-
ing. " Of course nobody ever saw them, unless
the feller was dreamin' or drunk;" — at the last
word Shadrach Pinnott's countenance took on the
insignia of comprehension — " anyhow, the book-
guys have written a lot of poetry about 'em, and
the artist-guys have painted pictures of what they
thought these lydies looked like; so when I saw
Miss here, dancing and singing in the orchard,
she took my eye for a dryad, or oread or a bac-
chante or some of them nationalities, and I'd like
to try the turn on the public — but — " he con-
cluded sternly, " not in them clothes — that's just
an everyday Persimmon Cove girl, and no dryad
about it."

Clotilda made no sign of relenting, and Lloyd
stared disconsolately at her while the slow brains
of the two other men turned over his discourse
reflectively. " The right kind of glad rags for
dancing are never stiff," he urged. " I can't figure
out how the lydy managed to stay so stiff and
starched these seven miles and more, waggoning
down from the mountain. She looks to be just off
the ironing-board."

" An' stranger, she be" the old grandam's voice
broke in suddenly as she hobbled up on her stick.
" Clotildy changed into them clothes, under the

103

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kivcr of the waggin, whenst we uns war about half
a mile from town."

Lloyd made a bolt toward the canvas-covered
vehicle. " And she has got the same togs along? "
he exclaimed. " Three cheers ! Three cheers !
Get 'em out, — get 'em out. And child, take off
your cap or bonnet or whatever that disguise is
called — blazes, girl! what have you got on your
hair?"

Clotilda, overborne by the trend of events and
perceiving very definitely that the opportunity for
display was lost unless she surrendered her per-
suasions as to toilette, obediently bared her head
to the light, the locks all sleek and smooth and
closely banded to her forehead. They were
streaked dark and light and glistened when the
sun fell upon them. She lifted her hands deprecat-
ingly to her head as he vociferated, "What is it
that you have got on your hair? "

" Nuthin' but lard," she faltered.

" Oh, — oh — " Lloyd gave a sigh of despair.
Then didactically he rejoined: "A lydy who per-
forms in public must be more natural than — than
— nature — or seem to be, — which is all the same
thing. She can paint her cheeks, which yours
don't need — and beautify along natural lines —
but no oread that I ever saw billed had a greased
head. I take it that this ain't the style among the
ones in the mountains, or the boards would have
followed the fashion. We will all pray that a cake
of tar soap and a pail of river water will wash that

104

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grease off. I understand that you are going to
camp here a little distance from town," he added,
turning to Shadrach Pinnott, and as the moun-
taineer assented, he continued, " Well, she can
go now to the camping ground and get that larded
hair washed, and sit in the sun till it dries off,
for," declared this disciple of realism severely,
"no oread, nor dryad, nor bacchante can do a
song and dance turn in my show with a greased
head!"

Time is a potent remedial agent, and with the
aid of tar soap and river water and the benign
influence of the sun and the wind it so restored the
integrity of Clotilda's locks that when it was al-
most five o'clock that afternoon and the excite-
ment and interest of the fair had reached the
culmination it was announced from the stage of the
high-class concert that the next attraction, which
was already widely advertised, would consist of a
song and dance turn by a talented young lady of
their own county, Miss Clotilda Josephine Belinda
Pinnott.

Lloyd's divination of the value of local interest
was justified, for the tent was crowded, and the
attractions elsewhere suffered in consequence. Sev-
eral members of the company left their posts, ac-
tuated by curiosity concerning this new feature.
The Flying Lady ceased her winged gyrations,
since her tent was deserted for the nonce, and came
and occupied a back seat, where she looked odd
enough, in her short white satin gown, with her

I05,

The Windfall

illusion scarf and her mechanical wings embarrass-
ing her posture and hanging over the bench, but
most of the audience consisted of the rural element
with a smaller proportion of the town-folks all
expectantly staring, anticipating who knows what
wonders. The orchestra was in place and the
music had been for some moments in full swing
when suddenly the curtain drew slowly up showing
a stage, dappled with the shadows of peach boughs
and calcium light. Beyond could be dimly de-
scried the mountains with sunset on the amthys-
tine slopes and a crimson cloud aloft — this effect
had been compassed by the simple expedient of
dropping a section of the canvas. The rear of the
tent gave on a vacant space above the bluffs of the
river ; the slight elevation of the stage nullified this
interval and thus it was against a background of
forests and mountains that the oread came softly
bounding on the stage, grace personified, as light
of foot, as innocently sportive as a fawn. Her
left arm upheld the skirt of her yellow dress, into
which she had gathered apron-wise a mass of pur-
ple grapes; here and there a cluster with leaves
and tendrils fell over against her dark red pet-
ticoat.

With her right hand she now caught at a peach
on the boughs, deftly interlaced beneath the roof of
the tent, and now with a touch she steadied the
pail or basket on her head, so overladen with
the clusters of grapes that only the contour of the
vessel could be descried in their midst. And as

1 06!

The Windfall

she danced she sang, the crude loudness of her
voice annulled by the crowd, the space, and per-
chance a trifle of shyness. But indeed this was not
predicable of the gay abandon with which she
threw herself into the spirit of the " turn." The
limelight, that simulated the clear and burnished
sunshine, showed every perfection of her beautiful
face, the soft aureola of her auburn hair, all a
fluffy mass, once more, of picturesque disorder;
the slender charm of her lissome figure and feet
and ankles; the exquisite shape of her arms,
seeming in the artificial radiance of an alabastine
whiteness. To her voice, like a murmurous rune
rather than an accompaniment, for Lloyd was
afraid that the unaccustomed adjunct to her sing-
ing might throw her off the key, the violins played
a gentle pizzicato variant of the theme, of which
she had been warned to take no heed, and it was
in accord with the effect of the whole performance
that, in lieu of the last furious whirl of the dan-
seuse, the usual panting bow, the appealing gesture
for the plaudits, the sunlit scene should vaguely
vanish, the curtain slowly, softly descending, leav-
ing the oread still sporting in the sylvan shadows
amongst the immemorial fantasies of the realms of
poesy.

The curtain was, however, ready to rise anew;
the manager's touch was on the bell, while the
pizzicato theme " Kind shepherd, tell me true,"
sounded from the violins, and now, to simulate an
echo, only one repeated the strain, and again the

107

The Windfall

first and second together, with a note from the
viol no louder than a booming bee, and again
the faint tones of the single instrument, and then — >
silence.

It remained unbroken for several minutes, but
presently the audience stirred and exchanged com-
ments. There was not the clap of a hand, not a
voice raised in applause. Nothing could have fal-
len more absolutely flat than the whole perform-
ance. The musicians, their violins still adjusted
under their chins ready to begin anew on the first
tinkle of the bell, cast surprised glances at one
another, then leered open ridicule, and seeing
Lloyd turn away from the hand-bell they lowered
their instruments and began to scrape them noisily,
changing the pitch and tuning them for a per-
formance in the pantomine tent of a comically
illustrated version of " A hot time in the old town
to-night."

Lloyd's face was flushed, his jaunty confident
expectation wilted utterly. He could not con-
ceive how he could be so far out of touch with
the sentiment of others that their appraisement
should differ so radically. The value of the
" turn " in his mind was not abated one jot by
their lack of appreciation ; he still thought it beau-
tiful, unique, an exquisite rustic idyl, but he lis-
tened with a pained curiosity to the comments on
every hand, vaguely seeking to comprehend the
reason of this divergence of opinion.

" Warn't them shoes jes' old injer-rubbers? " a
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The Windfall

country woman was saying to another, with a
lowered voice and a scandalised mien.

" I reckon mebbe she don't own no better shoes,"
her interlocutor of charitable interpretations
replied.

" Mought hev been afeard she would wear 'em
out with all that prancin' an* hoppin' up an'
down," a speculative third suggested.

" Wisht I hed my dime back," a grizzly old
malcontent sighed. " Special puffawmance —
shucks ! I don't see nuthin' special in a mountain
gal hoppin' up an' down arter a peach — ye kin
see that any day ye look out o' the winder or
alongside o' the road."

" Waal, that's what riles me," another of his
own sort asseverated. "I can't see the p'int o'
that show."

The " stunt " encountered even more than a dull
lack of appreciation and disapproval: in one in-
stance Lloyd, looking about with a manager's keen
eyes to discriminate effect, detected ridicule, ab-
solute and hearty — a covert ridicule which was to
his mind more disparaging to the value of the
turn than bluff open laughter. A rural wight,
whose intent interest he had earlier noted, was
still in his seat, holding his head down till his chin
was sunk in the frayed and dirty lapels of his old
grey coat. He wore his hat in the tent, the habit
of most of the country contingent, and the broad
flapping white wool brim almost hid his face, but
his bent shoulders shook with convulsive merri-

109

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ment, and again and again he muttered to him-
self, " What a fool he hev made of her — what a
fool — what a fool ! " More than once he drew
out a great bandana handkerchief to wipe the
moisture from his eyes. It was a genuine demon-
stration of enjoyment of the fiasco as Lloyd, net-
tled and troubled, could but perceive, for on each
of these occasions of the requisition of the red
handkerchief the spectator seemed to glance
about anxiously over its folds at the surrounding
crowd, as if solicitous that his sentiment should not
be observed.

The more experienced townspeople had not
more receptivity for the subtler elements of the
presentation. As the crowd pressed out of the
tent, for the special performance had been given
a place to itself, Lloyd overheard the comments
of one of the village youths, tinged with the con-
tempt always felt by the urban denizens for the
dwellers in the mountains and coves.

" I must apologise, Miss Minnie," he was say-
ing to the young lady whose parasol he carried,
" for bringing you in here, for imposing on your
patience — I thought from the advertisements that
this was really going to be something extra."

" She was right pretty," said the young lady
politely, trying to seem not to have been so ill-
entertained by the performance.

" Pretty? — perhaps — if she were properly
dressed — and had had her hair combed — and had
sung something new, with snap and ginger in it,

no

The Windfall

instead of the fag end of a drawling old song, as
old as Noah."

More than one of the town ladies of mature
years murmured in pettish reprobation over her
fan to another, " She was real shabby and untidy,
wasn't she?" "Perhaps she is poor?" Lloyd
heard this excuse suggested, yet once again.

The reply to it stayed in his mind: "She isn't
poor — old Shadrach Pinnott has the best of all
good reasons for not being poor, they say."

The echo of the general rural criticism from
persons of local station and presumable pro-
priety and refinement, albeit Lloyd felt their
animadversions ill-taken and out of keeping with
any artistic perceptions, made him unwilling to re-
tain the position of arbiter in the matter.

It seemed to Lloyd that with his trials, many
and various as they were, he hardly needed the
added discipline of self-reproach and the fear of
having inflicted a disparagement upon an innocent
and unoffending soul. He had begun to be so
doubtful of himself and the value of his own per-
suasions that he fairly feared to lay the matter
before the old mountaineer and his eldest son.
But he had discerned a conservative quality in the
serious, steady Daniel Pinnott, and he esteemed
himself fortunate in finding the two men together.
They were at the camping place they had selected
near the town, and although the oxen of the team
had been turned out to graze, the waggon stood still
laden as he had seen it when in the streets. A fire

in

The Windfall

burned briskly on a rocky space sloping to the
river bank, though amongst the ledges the grass
was rank and green. Several great trees, oak, elm,
beech, and ash, cast broad shadows from their full-
foliaged boughs. The sky, all red and gold in the
west, was mottled here and there with purple
flecks, and across the blue zenith were two long
cirrus clouds dazzlingly white with a suggestion of
wings, drooping, folded, not in ill accord with the
thoughts attendant on the down-dropping of the
vermilion sphere of the sun behind the dark, mas-
sive western mountains, and the illuminated, al-
most translucent aspect of the amethystine ranges
to the east. The reflection of the white clouds
gave the surface of the river a vivid glint here and
there among the rocks that fretted its current.
Close to the shore it was smooth, and here the
bank was low and shelving. Cows, homeward
bound from the range of the woodlands, loitered
knee deep in the ripples, now bending a horned
head to drink of the crystal-clear water, now in
the serene bovine content gazing meditatively,
motionlessly, at the illusive apotheosis of the
eastern mountains, as ethereal, as unearthly of as-
pect as a dream of the hills of heaven. There was
no glimpse of the town from this point; a slight
elevation cut off the view as completely as if this
exponent of civilisation were miles distant. Ex-
cept for the serpentine curves of the road the spot
was as isolated as any such sylvan nook on their
own mountain. Three sticks and a crane sup-

The Windfall

ported a pot over the fire and old Mrs. Pinnott,
with a crutch stick, a discerning, excited eye, and
a long spoon, bent over to stir the steaming con-
tents. As she caught up her skirts to avoid the
flames and circled hirpling about to compass this
devoir Lloyd was ashamed to entertain a reminder
of Macbeth's witches, whom he knew only in their
stage aspect. She did not hail him as " thane of
Cawdor " as he passed, but her greeting was hardly
less flattering. Mrs. Pinnott had been deeply im-
pressed by the splendours of the Street Fair. There
was a pulse within her which beat responsive to
worldly glories, and high social preferments, and
Lloyd's station in her estimation had appreciated
in due proportion. She waved the long spoon at
him in the fervour of her congratulation.

" It's plumb beautiful," she opined enthusiasti-
cally. "I ain't never seen the beat! I wisht I
hed eyes all around my head so ez I mought stare
my fill. You — you air a plumb special showman
an' no mistake," and once more she bent to the
stirring of the pot.

"Now I'll take no denial," said Lloyd, ad-
vancing. * You have got to come up to town with
me after tea and we will go up in the Ferris Wheel
together. That'll be full safe — I'll see to it that
you don't fall out. I'll sit by you — the settees are
made for two,"

" Fine for courtin'," Mrs. Pinnott was airily
coquettish. "Some o' them high-steppin' town
gals that I see lookin' arter you uns so lovin' this

"3

The Windfall

evenin' mought put a spider in my cup, seein' me
'tended by sech a handsome proud-sperited young

man."

" Proud-spirited," cried poor Lloyd, with a
dreary laugh. " I feel as meek as Moses."

Mrs. Daniel Pinnott was peeling potatoes at
a little distance, and the baby in a blue calico
slip, lying in the grass, kicking up its dimpled pink
heels, was consigned to the care of a great cur, that
now licked its face and now affected to bite the
soft hand which the infant thrust up into his open
jaws, and now squealed in shrill pain as the baby
fingers pinched and tugged at his defenceless ears
with a strength hardly to be expected of such cal-
low muscles.

" Both you lydies must come in time to see the
pyrotechnic exhibition, and go through the whole
show, and if you bring any money with you I'll
hold you up and throw every cent you have got into
the river."

Old Mrs. Pinnott inclined graciously to this
proposition. She had already paid to see a part of
the show and thus satisfied her sense of independ-
ence. If the manager were polite enough to favour
her with a second view of the scenes which her
memory gloated upon with so much delight, she
saw no reason why she should deny herself this
pleasure. " I be goin' ter stay all night with my
niece, Malviny Bostel, her who merried a Fenton
before she merried Bostel — Fenton bein' gone ter
glory, pore man ! All we wimmen folks, 'bout bed-

114

The Windfall

time, air goin' ter her house fur the night, bein' ez
we uns don't favour sleep in1 round a camp fire like
Towse thar, or the men-folks — thar ain't room in
the waggin. An', stranger, I ain't settin' out ter
saftsawder you uns whenst I say ez I had ruther go
ridin' in that big swing with you uns than ter set
in Malviny's * parlour,' ez she calls it, an' hear her
talk so mealy-mouthed, an' finified, an' explain all
the town doin's ter her kentry kin — she 'lowed ter
me ez she talked through a telly-fun whenst she
war in Glaston, an' Rufe Bostel hearn her at
Shaftesville, full twenty odd mile off — though
mebbe he did — his ears air long enough fur any-
thing. He minds me of a mule in more ways than
one! Waal, I know fust off ez much about the
Street Fair ez Malviny kin tell me, an' more — fur
I know her well enough ter take my affle-david to
it that she didn't spen' many dimes with you uns.
An' I'd be glad ter pass my evenin' somewhar else,
so's I kin purtend ter be so tired I can't do nuthin'
but sink on my pillow fur my solemn night's rest
whenst I git back ter Malviny's * parlour,' ez she
calls it."

" I'll engage that nobody can teach you any-
thing about the Street Fair after I'm through
showing you around," Lloyd declared, and me-
chanically lifting his hat he passed on, leaving her
staring after him admiring his grace. " The man's
got the manners of a red-bird," she exclaimed en-
thusiastically.

But Lloyd was ill at ease as he approached

'TKc Windfall

Shadrach Pinnott and his son Daniel. The oI8
man stood with the ox-yoke in his hand, half lean-
ing on it as he disentangled a rope that had become
wound about it, while his son bent under a bundle
of fodder, taken from the rear of the waggon, and
was flinging it down on the flat surface of an out-
cropping ledge of rock near the river, preparing
the supper of the oxen. Both mountaineers looked
at him with such eager expectant apprehensiveness
that the awkwardness of his mission seemed aug-
mented by their attitude. He felt that it was
necessary to break the ice at once — in fact he could
not be silent before the coercive inquiry of their
gaze.

" Did you hear your daughter sing, Mr. Pin-
nott? " he asked. The surprise, the tension of
doubt in the expression of their faces gave way
suddenly, with an effect of flouting contempt, as
if they had expected or feared to hear something
different. Shadrach did not reply. Both seemed
absorbed in a silent communion with their own
thoughts. Lloyd perceived that what he had
said was of such slight importance in their opinion
in comparison with what they had in mind that he
would have some difficulty in securing and hold-
ing their attention.

" It was a good turn — a better song-and-dance
I never saw, — but I am sorry I asked her to show.
I want to explain to you that I'd rather she
wouldn't appear — favour us — again at all."

" Why — why? " There was only curiosity in
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The Windfall

the old man's tones. The confidence which Lloyd
had won was very complete. He suspected no
rudeness — he appreciated no lack of tact.

" I feel very responsible for a misunderstand-
ing that has got about," said Lloyd. " I insisted,
against her preference, that she should appear in
a rustic costume and her soft old shoes. I heard
some comments afterwards in the audience.
People thought it shabby and inappropriate and
disrespectful to the public."

" Them town toads? " said Daniel. " We uns
ain't carin' what they think 'bout shoes an' sech."

"Call Clotildy— ax the child herself," said
Shadrach Pinnott hastily.

She was not far away, filling a bucket with water
at the spring which bubbled out from a mass of
rocks close by the river side — a clear pool of
crystal brown, its depths catching the light like
some gigantic topaz. The three men all ap-
proached her when her clear answering voice in the
evening stillness revealed her presence there. She
bent down, sunk the bucket into the depths, then
placing it on her head, stood, one hand on her hip,
the other lifted to the pail, and waited, motionless,
their coming within speaking distance. She was
again garbed in her holiday gown of brown mot-
tled muslin, that had so offended the manager's
artistic predilections, and once more her feet were
encased in the brogans that disguised beyond all
suggestion their grace of form and elasticity of
fibre. But her hair still showed its soft flaunting

117

\TKe Windfall

auburn hue, and rose in pliant, redundant waves
from her brow and was coiled in a great knot at
the back of her head. She listened without a word
to the explanation which the three men made in
disconnected instalments, her eyes turning from
one to the other as each successively took up the
story. She showed no confusion; her face was
absolutely inexpressive. Lloyd began to doubt how
he might best reach her understanding. But when
she suddenly spoke it was obvious that she had
grasped the whole situation.

;< The mounting folks purtend ez I ain't got no
better shoes — waal, ef they look right sharp ter-
night they'll see these, bran new an' middlin'
stout." She glanced down at them with the pride
of possession. " An' the town folks purtend ter
be powerful shocked kase my old calico dress ain't
fine enough. Why, they air obleeged ter know
ez it air a part of the * turn ' like the peach-tree
branches. Nobody gathers fruit and dances in an
orchard in thar Sunday-go-ter-meetin' clothes."

Her logic reassured Lloyd as to the merely cap-
tious nature of the criticism — he had not insisted
on a point that could fairly discredit her in her
neighbours' eyes. " But since the question has been
raised," he said, " I think we won't have the song-
and-dance again."

She withered him with a glance. " These folks
can't ondertake ter teach me whut's respectable,"
she said not without dignity. " I'll dance in my
old shoes and my yellow calico dress every day

118

The Windfall

whilst I'm in town, an' then I'll go creakin' all
around in my new shoes an' my new muslin ter
show the folks I hev got 'em. I won't allow ez
they kin gin me the word what air 'spectable."

Then with the utmost composure, her bucket
poised upon her head, she took her way past them
and shouldered the responsibility herself.

Lloyd was infinitely relieved, but as he walked
back toward the town he overtook a man whom he
remembered instantly to have earlier noticed — he
had been laughing like a satyr at the spectacle of
the dancing oread in the show that afternoon.
There was something so malicious, so triumphant
in the character of his mirth that Lloyd's keen ob-
servation might have discriminated its peculiar
relish of the girl's failure to win the public favour,
even if he had not had the success of the " turn "
so much at heart. With his retentive mind he
would have remembered the demonstration in any
event, but as he passed the man whose face was
also turned toward the village he received an un-
pleasant impression that he had been followed. If
this man had gone by the Pinnott encampment
along the road, as several others had done, Lloyd
argued within himself that he would likewise have
noticed the fact; the man had obviously left the
town last, and it was certainly somewhat odd that
within so short an interval of time he should be
overtaken wending his way thither. He was not
of the type or station to indulge in a stroll for
pleasure or a constitutional tramp. He seemed,

119

The Windfall

moreover, infirm, walking very slowly and he
leaned heavily on a stout cane. Lloyd noticed as
he passed that the high cowhide boots which he
wore had been split by a knife with longitudinal
strokes above the toes of each foot, suggesting the
torture of bunions. The gray coat loose and long
was not of the usual homespun jeans, but of some
store-bought fabric, and from the web the nap had
so worn that the original texture was indetermin-
able. The garment boasted few buttons; the sub-
stitute of a ten-penny nail was dexterously inserted
in the upper button-hole and an opportune rent
in the opposite side. It was frayed and even jagged
around the edges, and the trousers of the same
goods, loose and bagging about the knees, were
in scarcely better repair. His shoulders were bent
and slouched, and the coat was either too large at
first or had stretched with wear into many rucks
and wrinkles. It had suggestions of a miller's
habit, for here and there were traces of flour, and
the old white wool hat had neither binding on its
wide brim nor a hatband.

Lloyd sought to cast off the disagreeable im-
pression. He had naught to hide. He could be
followed, if indeed his steps had been dogged at
all, only from the idlest curiosity. The rural peo-
ple seemed in fact so elementary, so primitive, that
the showman, himself, might be accounted an ob-
ject of interest. And even as he thus reasoned he
perceived the fallacy, but he had scant leisure to
canvass the incident.

CHAPTER yil

E)YD could not remember an evening in
his humble career as impresario that had
so strained and racked his endurance. The
pyrotechnic exhibition bade fair to be a failure,
some of the combustibles having gotten damp in
the downpour of rain on the previous evening, and
each piece refusing to fizzle or shoot or whirl,
whatever its particular method of explosion might
be, while all the town gathered and stared, and
laughed, and grew indignant, and made sarcastic
comments somewhat incompatible with the fact
that the fireworks were a free show, and that no
spectator was defrauded of his money. Suddenly,
after so much futile effort, and without any of the
usual incentives, a small waggon which had brought
the explosives from the station to the square, was
lifted toward the stars in jets of red, blue, yellow,
green and white light ; rockets were darting, comet-
like, hither and thither through the crowd; Cather-
ine wheels whirled; Roman candles blazed; cannon
crackers exploded; all in simultaneous clamour and
flare. The terrified horse, breaking loose from his
harness, set off at a frantic speed, and the driver
was thrown to the earth, not dead nor wounded
as the men, rushing to his assistance, expected to
find him, but powder-smirched, slightly jarred, con-

121

The Windfall

vulsed with laughter, declaring that his ascension
discounted the Flying Lady's jaunts into the air,
and showing himself to be very considerably drunk
— a state which had not been at all obvious before
the explosion.

The crowd's interest in combustibles had very
sensibly diminished and when the final balloons had
gone wafting away over the dark stretches of the
infinite loneliness of the Great Smoky Mountains
— to astonish the eyes of some remote dweller
therein, knowing naught even of the existence of
so sophisticated a fact as a street fair, or perchance
to be seen only by a marauding wolf or a crafty
fox and seeming to follow with the red eye of
menace the beast's pursuit of his prey, — the craning
necks of the villagers were tired and the sight-
seers turned with ready zest to the merry-go-round,
the kinetoscope, the venders of indigestible edibles,
the various show-tents, the revolutions of the Fer-
ris Wheel. The continual ascent and descent of
the passengers, swinging in the great periphery,
maintained a perennial interest for the public of
Colbury. As the wheel lifted its patrons higher
and higher into the air it paused entirely now and
then, that they might swing gently at a giddy ele-
vation and look away from the town, studded
with the lights of the street fair, flaring in the
clear, dark atmosphere, and enjoy the far prospect
of valley and river and the clifty defiles of the
mountains, all an illumined purple and silver in
the sheen of the serene autumnal moon.

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The Windfall

But even in this simple routine, quiet shunned the
harassed manager. The wheel was laden, as Lloyd
in his general supervisory duties, strolled up and
with his hands in his pockets stood watching its
revolution. Every seat but one was filled, and the
exclamations of delight and wonder in the voices
of children and women sounded pleasantly enough
on the air. Suddenly raucous tones from high in
the darkness broke forth; a man was thickly pro-
testing fear and anger and contention, and soon his
voice rose into sobs and wild cries, infinitely weird
and nerve thrilling, sounding from the height and
the indefinite gloom, and fraught with unimagined
disaster. Amongst the venturesome wights, swing-
ing so high above the earth, the utmost consterna-
tion prevailed, and pleas of eager insistence to be
lowered and released came from every swing. A
halloo of inquiry from the manager below ad-
dressed to the disturber of the peace elicited only
agonised prayers for succour and cries of pain that
rose piercingly into the night. The mystery being
insoluble Lloyd's first care was to caution the other
occupants of the swings to remain firmly seated in
their places and to release them seriatim as soon as
the great wheel could complete its revolution.
While this was in progress he stood close by, scan-
ning the passengers as one by one they emerged,
keenly watching lest the spoil-sport, madman, or
victim, who had so signally destroyed the pleasure
of the crowd and injured the prestige of the Ferris
Wheel, escape undetected in the press. He proved

I23i

The Windfall

easily enough identified, however, as, still whimper-
ing in the intervals of uttering wild cries, he came
to the ground and was seized upon by the stalwart
showman.

He had been stabbed, he declared, and he would
sue the company. When reminded that he had
been in a seat alone, and inquired of as to the per-
petrator of the deed he asseverated that when as
high as the top of the wheel a stranger had climbed
into the seat with him, a stranger of a most ter-
rible aspect. In fact, this terrible stranger looked
just like the devil, he solemnly averred, with evi-
dent familiarity with the diabolic features. And
there, while suspended so high above the world that
none could succour him, this demon-man had
stabbed him — and he would have damages of the
show company — stabbed him in the right side.

With the most dismal forebodings, for the man
was evidently half fainting and had the pallor of
death, Lloyd called the engineer from the little
gasoline motor of the wheel to his assistance, and
supporting the victim between them they took their
way to the drug store on the corner. Lloyd no-
ticed the feeble step of their burden, as his feet
half dragged on the ground, and the nerveless
languor of his form, and began to fear that he
was indeed in bad case. The truth did not even
vaguely dawn upon Lloyd until the physician, who
had been hastily summoned, looked the victim over
and declared that his skin was unbroken through-
out and he had never been stabbed.

124

The Windfall

" Why, what could have been his motive in all
this commotion ? " asked Lloyd in wonderment.

" Can't you see?" the doctor queried in turn.
" He is on the verge of delirium tremens."

As Lloyd stood in the door of the drug store in
the light which streamed through the great red and
green glass bottles in the windows, that bespoke
its functions, he listened to the snickering com-
ments of the men on the sidewalk while they recited
to newcomers the details of the incident, and his
mind laid hold of certain unexplained points which
were most pertinent to its proper comprehension.

;< Why, I thought that Colbury was a dry town,"
he addressed one of the bystanders. " Where do
all these drunken men get their liquor? "

" I dunno — do you? " His interlocutor favoured
him with a facetious wink which was in the nature
of things an equivocal demonstration, for as he
faced the light of the drug store windows the wink
was both red and green.

" Well, the liquor must be pretty cheap to be
drunk in such glorious plenty," Lloyd remarked
impersonally.

For the crowd was of a grade that has little
money to spend, and it would seem that the Fair
must needs absorb a good part of it.

"Liquor is cheap! — you bet your life," his
interlocutor treated him to another rainbow-tinted
wink, " liquor is cheap, — for Shadrach Pinnott is
in town ! "

The simple words explained many things to
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The Windfall

Lloyd's quick perceptions — the waggon laden with
baskets to sell, the secluded camping-ground on the
river-bank, yet near the town, which was a vir-
tuous dry town with not a saloon open in the place.
This surreptitious sale of liquor was doubtless
illegal in more than one sense, evading the tax of
the revenue law of the government as well as de-
fying the restrictions of the municipal prohibition.
He was remembering the occasion of his arrival
on the mountain — how the girl had followed him
to the house as if she feared his escape; how, de-
spite the torrents of rain, she had sought her father
and brothers to submit to their judgment the mys-
tery of his sudden appearance ; how eagerly anxious
was the old beldame in volunteering to account for
their vocation and the use to which they put the
product of their great orchards ; how obviously re-
lieved they had seemed when they had learned his
own vocation. It was all plain, now; they were
distillers of illicit whisky and brandy, and they had
suspected him as an emissary of the revenue depart-
ment, a detective, or one of the marshal's men. It
was not an unnatural conclusion, perhaps ; strangers
in those secluded fastnesses, unheralded and with-
out vouchers, were rare and obnoxious to suspicion.
The matter was peculiarly distasteful to Lloyd
individually, who was a sober, law-abiding citizen,
and in the interests of the Street Fair, specially
repugnant. He resented the fact that the enterpris-
ing moonshiners should contrive to utilise the
presence of his show in the streets of Colbury to

126

The Windfall

share the profits of the occasion with their nefarious
and illicit trade. Absurdly enough in view of its
humble insignificance Lloyd was proud of his Fair
— it was a clean show, he averred; it had no dis-
reputable hangers-on nor traffic; its members
worked faithfully for their scanty wages; it lived
up to its representations, barring of course the few
illusions and devices necessary to heighten amuse-
ment. It tolerated no false dealing on the part of
its concessionaries toward the unsophisticated and
simple population; it was a strictly temperance
organisation — the acrobats required sobriety to
conserve the control of the nerves, and the other
members of the company, hard at work from early
morn till late at night, had neither time nor in-
clination to indulge in the flowing bowl. Lloyd
was nettled, even more, troubled, that it should be
associated in any way with the risky trade plying
on the outskirts of the town. The sudden presence
of numbers of intoxicated men could be accounted
for by the authorities in no way but by the sus-
picion of the sly sale of liquor in the Fair itself, or
by some surreptitious vendor disconnected with its
management. This elusive law-breaker would be
difficult to discover, even though he bore the repu-
tation of previous exploits of the kind; the sale of
the home-made baskets was a very efficient blind;
the spot which the moonshiner had selected was
invaluable for his purposes, so secluded, so dose
to the bank — a sudden alarm and the chaste sylvan
waters of the crystal river would be adulterated

127

{Hie. Windfall

in a wise never known before, the land flowing
with toddy, in lieu of the conventional milk and
honey. Lloyd winced as he reflected that he, the
manager of the Carnival, had been seen to repair
to this spot this afternoon, that he had earlier
visited the moonshiners' house, and apparently
given them their first intimation that they should
attend the Street Fair.

As he still stood on the street corner, looking
about mechanically, his hat drawn down over his
brow, his hands in his pockets, he was lost in
thought and saw naught of the scene before him — -
the torches in front of the stands of confectionery
and the peanut roaster; the electric stars that stud-
ded the circumference of the Ferris Wheel ; the big
mooney lustre of the rows of tents, the flare within
illumining the outer aspect of the canvas; the
courthouse rising up in the midst, taking on a sort
of castellated dignity as its tower loomed in the
dim light of uncertainty above; the motley crowd
surging hither and thither wherever a sudden com-
motion gave promise of special attraction or the
added sensation of an accident; the straggling
glimmer from the lighted windows of the resi-
dences of the town along the hillside ; and further
away the contour of august mountain ranges under
the melancholy light of a young moon, little more
than a gilded sickle cutting the mists, like the test
of the temper of the scimiter of the Orient dividing
the gauze veil at a single stroke. He heard
naught of the varied clamours of the town — the

128!

The Windfall

callow vociferations of the ever-present small boy,
the clatter of tongues in conversation and com-
ment, the sudden brazen outpour of tumult when
the brass band sent a popular melody pulsing along
the currents of the air, the frantic cries of the
spielers contending against each other and vaunt-
ing their rival attractions. Great favourites these
were with the country crowd, and it was a facile
laugh that rewarded their pleasantries. Sometimes
these verged on hardihood. "Isaac! Isaac! he
eats 'em — he eats 'em alive ! Come in ! Come in,
an' see the snake-eater, lady — he eats 'em alive ! "
Then resounded his rival, " Oh, lady, don't go
down there. Come in here and see the Fat Lady —
weighs six hundred pounds."

And anon the retort, " Oh, lady, that feller
ain't got no fat woman — none but skin-and-bone
would look at him. Here's Isaac — worth the
money; he eats 'em — he eats 'em, alive."

And once more " Weighs six hunderd pounds —
come in and see her tip the beam — oh, lady, don't
believe that snake-man. The serpent was ever the
snare of the fair sex ! That feller is the same one
that crawled in the garden of Eden, lady. Come
in, lady, and see the handsomest woman of her
size in the world — tips the beam at six hunderd
pounds ! "

Lloyd was deaf to it all. He was still revolving
the situation, which was by no means devoid of
danger to him. Should the foolhardy enterprise
of the moonshiners reveal their infringement of the

129

The Windfall

law and bring down disaster, which could only end
in a Federal prison, he might well be involved on
the suspicion of connivance and profit-sharing.
The truth was that the financial prospect of the
Fair must have been greatly ameliorated by the
depot of liquid refreshment established on its out-
skirts. He had not earlier been able to understand
the crowd's reinforcement in point of numbers as
the day had worn on. He remembered, with a
sort of helpless astonishment at the toils of the
circumstances as they began to enmesh him, how
public he had permitted to be the fact of his ac-
quaintance with these people; the glowing adver-
tisements of the " song-and-dance turn " of Sha-
drach Pinnott's daughter, which in themselves must
have been ample intimation to the initiated that
there was something else to be found at the Street
Fair as alluring as youth and beauty ; the courtesies
that he had shown the family as recognition in
some sort of the very questionable value of her
performance.

He had realised that it was in itself a sort of
exhibition, at which he had himself been able to
laugh in the lightness of his heart — he had thought
it a very heavy heart then, so unprescient had he
been of worse troubles to come, — when he had
made the tour of the show with the venerable Mrs.
Pinnott on his arm, and they had gone up in the
Ferris Wheel together. All the crowd below had
laughed and guyed the twain, as the mingled fright
and ecstasy of the ancient dame sounded on the

130

The Windfall

air while she swayed aloft and clutched her youth-
ful cavalier with a grip of steel. Now and again
the listening wights were convulsed with merriment
at her pertinent remarks, charged with a pungent
old-fashioned native wit, and, when once more on
solid ground, the rough but good-natured crowd
had given a rousing cheer for " May and Decem-
ber." It was hardly possible that any ascent could
be more public.

He was taking himself to task now for his plas-
tic folly. He said to himself that he did not know
any other man who would have been guilty of it.
The indifference of other men, their surly self-
centred natures, their aversion to ridicule, their
sense of the value of their own time in rest, if
duty did not absorb it, in the luxury of waste, if
no dissipation entrenched upon it — all would have
protected other men from a situation which had
as a sequence menace so serious. Other men might
have found a lure in the girTs beauty and thus
involved themselves in a troublous association. It
was only he, however, who would interest himself
in the enjoyment of a funny old crone, by giving
her a ride on the Ferris Wheel and a sight of all
the wonders of the show, sinking his individuality
out of sight, and laughing himself at the crowd's
ridicule of the incongruity of the companions. It
was no unselfishness, he told himself grimly. He
found his own happiness in such ill-advised bene-
factions. And this fad, that had seemed so simple,
so natural, had developed a curiously resilient blow.

The Windfall

He could well understand now why the men of the
family had no interest concerning the details of
the show, and manifested no filial disposition that
her narrow, restricted life should be enriched with
the sights and sounds that were so much to her
wondering simplicity. Overpowered by all they
had at stake in their venturesome pursuit of their
vocation, in defiance of imminent discovery and the
penalties of a long term of imprisonment, they had
neither time nor thought for such trivialities as
making for her behoof the tour of the Fair.

If a disastrous suspicion of complicity in their
enterprise on the part of the management of the
Carnival should be entertained by the revenue
authorities it would wreck the individuals of the
combination beyond all help or redemption, Lloyd
reflected. They were strangers, poor personally,
and as a company on the verge of financial collapse.
Suspicion would mean for them arrest, the jail,
utter ruin, for there was no, possibility of bail-bonds
for stranded mountebanks in a remote and un-
familiar region.

Lloyd staggered under a sense of responsibility.
His first impulse was to find Haxon, and in the
confidential relations of mutual interest seek some
surcease for the terrors that had fallen upon him
with fangs that were rending and gnawing at his
consciousness. Then he checked himself. No
change of plan could be speedily compassed. An
itinerant show is an unwieldy device. It was ob-
vious policy that the Carnival should continue the

132

The Windfall

next day without any deviation of plan, until the
matter could be canvassed and some decision
reached. Haxon's nerve must not be shaken.
His diurnal feat, his " high dive," was billed for
the morning, and a suggestion freighted with such
momentous possibilities would doubtless affect his
self-control, his physical poise, and cost him his
life. A frightful fate waited on a false step,
a trifling miscalculation of distance. Lloyd shud-
dered at the thought. He had seen Haxon earlier
in the evening, and had marked with a sense of
gratulation the restoration of the spirits of the
acrobat. The improved business of the show, as
the day wore on, had revived Haxon's hopes.
The company might yet pull through, he thought,
making current expenses and transportation. This
was the first day, and though he could not discern
whence the patrons for the rest of the week were
to come, he found a degree of solace in the pro-
pitious present, the jollity of the aspect of the
square, the flaring lights, the enthusiastic crowds,
and all the " turns " were at their best.

With a sigh Lloyd felt that he must broaden
his back to the burden. He could carry this
weighty secret without a sign till high noon to-
morrow, surely. He drew out his silver watch
and consulted its dial — he wondered would the
course of events change before twelve hours should
pass. Still Haxon must not know — the routine'
could not be altered without suspicion. Lloyd
had a keen, intelligent power to appraise cause and

133

The Windfall

event, and he had already noted the sudden fierce
temper of rural crowds. He intuitively knew that
the public here could not be balked of its sensation
with the proffered return of the money at the door,
like a metropolitan audience, even if it were prac-
ticable. But Haxon's turn was a free show. It
was already the inalienable property of the public.
A riot might ensue, and in any disturbance disas-
trous facts might be elicited and precipitate the
dangers he feared. Haxon must not know. The
crowd must be kept satisfied, and as quiet and
orderly as possible until the leap for life was made.

Suddenly Lloyd's heart sank as he wondered
why the municipal authorities had not interfered
to seek the source of the inebriation of the drunken
men on the streets of this dry town. Surely they
could not be suspected of standing in with the liquor
dealers, or were they even now laying their plans,
spreading their snares, waiting for the coming of
the revenue force, already summoned, for there
were rewards of not despicable sums for the
informer.

He was about to start toward the hotel, still
lingering in front of the drug store at the corner
of the intersection of one of the streets with the
square, and he became all at once aware of a covert
watchful gaze, that had been fixed on him so long,
with such complete immunity by reason of his
mental absorption hitherto, that his abrupt turn
surprised and caught it. The look came from a
pair of dark, bright eyes, under the flapping brim

134

\TKc Windfall

of an old white hat, shown in the flare from the
windows of the drug store — young eyes, to his
astonishment, for he had fancied that it was
an old lame man in the miller's garb, who had
" shadowed " him to the Pinnott encampment to-
day. He could not be sure of the incongruity, for
the man turned his head instantly, and the mo-
mentary impression was lost in the turmoil of
anxiety, of eager thought, of perplexed fears that
filled the brain of the manager of the joyous
" carnival."

When one by one the lights of the Street Fair
went out, when the town was dark save for the
corner lamps at long intervals, when the crowds
had vanished and the itinerants had repaired to
the little hotel which harboured the better paid,
or the boarding-houses where the underlings found
refuge, except indeed the " freaks," who from mo-
tives of privacy, so essential to their trade, never
left their several tents, Lloyd tossed to and fro on
his sleepless pillow and canvassed anew within him-
self the situation, and calculated again the prob-
lems of the expense accounts and the gate receipts
and the transportation, and wondered if he had de-
cided wisely, and then listened warily to the breath-
ing of Haxon, in his bed on the opposite side of
the room, lest the tumult of his wild thoughts
might have boisterously wakened the acrobat and
defrauded him of his night's rest.

CHAPTER VIII

THE morning brought no change in the
situation. The sun came grandly up
from over the blue and misty mountains,
with a train of iridescent and shimmering vapours,
and a splendid pageant of clouds, bedecked in red
and gold and purple, with scintillating fleckings
of jewel-like brilliancy. These were gone, eva-
nescent, before the dew was off the grass that grew
all along the sides of the streets, and the sky was
densely blue, poised high, high above the lofty
mountain ranges, tiers on tiers, that climbed against
it as if seeking to reach these spheres of empyreal
height. The sunshine was infinitely clear and
crystalline. The soft wind had an exquisite fresh-
ness and a balsamic tang that the lungs expanded
to meet involuntarily as if an instinct recognised
its balm of healing.

The breakfast of the little rural hotel, of that
peculiar excellence and generous abundance that
so often characterise the hostelries in*these out-
of-the-way places of the South, put new heart into
Lloyd, and his hopes were recruited as he went out
into the verandah of the hotel lighting his cigar
and beholding with benign complacence the array
of the Street Fair — the tents, the great circumfer-
ence of the Ferris wheel, with the mountains

136

The Windfall

framed within its periphery, the merry-go-round,
still motionless and vacant as if the dummy horses
had just waked up, the humbler employees going
hither and thither, on their various duties, getting
ready for the day. He did not say a word, for
Haxon's mood was so uncertain that it was impossi-
ble to know how any casual phrase might affect
him. Haxon himself spoke first.

" I suppose I look at that mast every morning
with the same feeling that a condemned criminal
has for his first glimpse of the gallows," he said
bitterly.

Lloyd paused to throw away the match with
which he had lighted his cigar. " Gammon ! " he
exclaimed, contemptuously. " You couldn't be
persuaded to cut out that stunt of yours if I begged
you for a month." The acrobat's brow cleared,
and Lloyd breathed more freely. He had by lucky
chance said exactly what Haxon desired to hear.
He wished to feel that he acted by his own free
choice — that he was not coerced because the hour
was set, the feat advertised, and the public waited.

The morning was never characterised by special
activity in the Street Fair. The world had all its
insistent duties, contending with the delights of
sight-seeing. Breakfast was to be discussed, stores
opened, the municipal court sessions to be held,
the mail to be distributed, and only gradually did
spectators begin to gather in the streets, and the
spielers to take their stand.

" Only an hour, now, — an hour of life," said
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The Windfall

Haxon, as the clock in the courthouse tower
clanged out its tale of strokes; " when another hour
strikes I may be in hell."

Lloyd burst out laughing. " Seem to under-
stand your own deserts ! " he cried with a joyous
inflection.

And once more Haxon smiled responsive.

Lloyd could not forbear a sigh of relief, and
catching his breath it was metamorphosed into a
spurious yawn, so fearful was he of shaking his
confrere's poise.

The next moment Haxon had forgotten his cold
fit of disinclination in sudden overwhelming curi-
osity. From one of the intersecting streets there
rolled into the square one of those vehicles of the
region denominated " hacks," strong, light, .fur-
nished with a canopy and with curtains for falling
weather, and with a brake, regulated by the driver's
foot, which the steep slants of the mountain roads
rendered imperatively necessary. It was drawn
by two strong, well-fed, speedy horses, caparisoned
with good stout harness, and gay with red tassels
dangling at their heads. It had three seats, and
a boot for trunks, and it could hold comfortably
nine persons. There were only five passengers,
however, and the driver headed straight for the
hotel.

The two showmen watched without -a word the
commotion of the arrival; the porter ran forth
with a grin of delighted recognition; the clerk at
the desk threw down his pen and issued precipi-

The Windfall

tately on the verandah ; nay, the Boniface, himself,
outstripped the underling's speed and opened the
door of the hack, smiling benignly with the dignity
of a portly, affable man, and with so obvious a
pleasure that it might seem that he ran an hotel
for the fun of the thing.

" Here we are again, Mr. Benson," a lady of
perhaps forty-five years of age said agreeably,
while Mr. Benson's bald head shone in the sun,
and his slippered feet shuffled to and fro as he
sought to offer her the most efficient assistance in
alighting from the high-swung vehicle.

" Mighty glad to see you all again — fine
weather for an outing," he asseverated, still all
bland, blond smiles.

The lady was of a slender type, ostentatiously
simple, with a black taffeta skirt and a "white
handkerchief linen " blouse, speckless, perfect, ab-
solutely plain, with large plaits or tucks, and a
broad black belt with a big steel buckle in the back.
Her large black hat partly shaded a fair, faded
oval face with a crown of blond hair, the sheen
of which was fairly quenched by time; she wore
a mere thread of a filigree gold necklace about her
high collar and on the wrist of one of her delicate,
transparent, thin hands, which was without her
black silk glove, a narrow gold bracelet with a
bangle dangled.

Two young men had leaped out of the vehicle
on the other side, while still seated, looking about
them for gloves, bags, and small sundries, were

139

The Windfall

two young ladies whose appearance made no pre-
tensions whatever to simplicity. Both were arrayed
in the height of the mode, in white embroidered
linen suits, one made with a natty short jacket, the
other with a stylish long coat; their white lingerie
hats were tilted forward, and the embroidered frills
gave scant view of aught but fair and delicately
flushed cheeks, while at the back of their heads
their redundant tresses of brown and gold showed
in soft heavy puffs.

" We are simply perishing at New Helvetia,"
the eldest lady confided to Mr. Benson, " for the
lack of something to do or say, or see, and we
heard that down here in the * flat woods ' you
have evolved a Circus, or Street Fair, or Carnival
or something, and it has saved our lives, Mr. Ben-
son. Don't tell us that you are overcrowded and
can't take us in, for we don't want to stay over
night. You can feed the hungry, surely, Mr.
Benson."

" Indeed, madam, we can always do that."

" To perfection," the lady protested, and Mr.
Benson bowed and blushed with pleasure, flattered
as well he might be.

They were all speedily housed; the flutter of
skirts, the swift tread of soft, pliant, well-made
boots, and they had disappeared. As the team of
the hack trotted off to the stables Haxon beckoned
to the negro porter.

There is something very pervasive, coercive,
permeating in the influence of cultivation, of

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fashion, of station in the world of wealth. It had
never occurred to Lloyd, so little was he brought
in contact with this element, to gauge the lack of
refinement in Haxon's endowments or manners
till he placed himself in contrast with the new-
comers.

"Who are them guys?" Haxon asked of the
porter.

The method of address obviously embarrassed
the servant. It seemed derogatory to the high
estate of these great ones of the earth whom he
had rejoiced to serve in their sudden comings and
goings. To answer a question which described
them as " guys " was in itself an indignity. But
he swallowed the affront and replied succinctly —
'* They are some of the guests what's been stay in'
at the New Helveshy Springs in the mountings,
sah."

" Thought the springs were closed by this time,"
Lloyd remarked, and the servant apprehending the
observation as applicable to business interests rather
than actuated by mere curiosity, replied with a
placated mien, " Jes' a few stayin' on, sah — feared
ter go home till frost, 'count of de yaller fever
whar dey live in Mobile or New Orleans or some
o' dem Southern cities. Dey got nuthin' ter 'muse
dem at New Helveshy — even de band's gone, —
an' dey drive down 'ere wunst in a while." He
lingered for a moment, for the satisfaction of pos-
sible further queries, but none came and he betook
himself within.

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Lloyd looked with anxious doubt at the brow
of Haxon, seeking to discern and gauge his senti-
ment, so slight an irritant might now disturb the
precarious poise of his equilibrium. But Haxon
merely remarked with a sigh, " I wish they were
five hundred instead of five."

" Well, there's one comfort," said Lloyd, " the
show couldn't be any better if they were five hun-
dred instead of five."

He had struck the wrong note and the discord
jangled instantly.

" Well, the railroads don't haul folks on their
merits," the acrobat rejoined acridly. " It makes
mighty little difference in this cursed hole whether
the show is good or bad, if there ain't nobody to
see it. I believe you are ambitious of playin' to
a cent and a half a day."

The roseate flush on Lloyd's girlish cheek deep-
ened, but it was one of the slow tortures privileged
to rack his soul in these days of stress that he was
debarred the natural vent of anger. He could
not retort, in sheer humanity he could not flame out
in petulance at the man whose life was to be placed
in most hideous jeopardy in half an hour, balanced
on the flicker of an eyelash, lost in a momentary
quiver of the nerves. But Lloyd truly felt that his
trials increased in a regular ratio with the demon-
stration of his capacity to sustain them. Sometimes
he thought that a sudden sarcasm, an outbreak
of the vexation that stirred him might overawe
Haxon, elicit his self-control, and serve really to

142

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steady his nerves. It was not an experiment which
he was willing to try at another's cost. He braced
his own nerves for endurance therefore, and taxed
his capacity for expedients.

" Oh, hush," he said, with affected roughness.
" You are out of your contract now. You don't
know anything about the receipts yesterday — it's
all up to me. You are agreed to take no share in
business till you've done your leap for the day.
Then we'll strike the balance."

A slow smile was dawning in the acrobat's eyes.
Business must have been better than he had feared.
It is difficult to estimate the number of an ever-
shifting crowd. He had placed himself under this
restriction that he might have the less strain
to preserve his calmness of mind before his leap
for life.

Suddenly there issued from the door of the
hotel the two young men who had accompanied
the ladies from the New Helvetia Springs. They
had lighted their cigars, having been debarred that
luxury, possibly, on the drive. They drew up two
of the many vacant chairs that stood on the ver-
andah and seated themselves near the railing.

" I like nothing better than an old-fashioned
el Principe" the elder was saying. " It gives a
good clean mild smoke. You ought to smoke
nothing, though, at your age ; your training will go
hard with you this fall if you saturate your system
with strong tobacco, — then have to leave off
suddenly."

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It was less the obvious truism than the profes-
sional word " training " that caught the showmen's
attention. They looked with keen interest at the
newcomers. One was much the younger — a tall,
blond youth, well-built and muscular, twenty years
of age perhaps, fresh, alert, perfectly groomed,
glowing with health and bright-eyed vigour. The
other had an air of much distinction. He was
fully thirty-five, with clear-cut, delicate features,
an intellectual face; but with a languid eye ; he was
tall, exceedingly thin, and very elaborately and pre-
cisely dressed in the height of the fashion of the
day. Both wore suits of light wool, so nearly
white that the faint flecking of brown in one and
the broken " shadow check " in the other scarcely
impinged on the cream effect. Even their shoes
were white. The younger had a straw hat of a
natty sailor shape, while the elder wore a Panama
hat, and as he lifted it, laying it on the broad rail
of the banisters, baring his brow to the refresh-
ing breeze, it became evident that his short brown
hair was growing sparse at the temples and a tiny
thin space on the top of his well-shaped head
threatened a baldness within the next few years.
Both were of fair complexion and clean-shaven,
and that feature the most expressive of character
in a man's face, the mouth, showed without reserve ;
it was of firm lines in the elder, with a suggestion
of uttering not too many nor too lightly considered
words, the mouth of a man who was capable of
self-control, and had had more occasion for this

144

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quality than seemed consonant with the sybaritic
conditions of his apparent estate in life. The lips
of the youth had joyous intimations — red, elastic,
smiling, now widening in a grin of most exuberant
mockery as — to be rid perchance of the nicotian
lecture — he caught up one of the handbills of the
Carnival, which were flying about the town, and
his eye fell on an item which titillated his sense of
humour.

" Oh, say, Jardine, ain't this rich?" and he
read chucklingly, " * Captain Ollory of the Royal
Navy, the greatest high dive artist in the world,
will give a free exhibition of his wonderful
performance daily."

The other smiled with languid amusement.
" * The Royal Navy? '—let's see," and sticking his
cigar between his teeth he held out his hand for
the flimsy sheet. Lloyd felt the blood flare into
his face as he watched the eyes of this pam-
pered worldling travel, illumined with lazy laugh-
ter, along the lines of the bill which he had written
with such eager hope and thoughtful care, and of
which he had been so proud until this moment of
subtle disillusionment.

" Doesn't say what Royal Navy," Jardine sug-
gested languidly.

" Nor how Captain Ollory — isn't that a de-
licious name? — happens to cease to sail the seas to
dive on dry land for the admiration of the denizens
of Colbury and the purlieus of Kildeer County.
Isn't it great? " and once more the mobile lips

145,

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of the youth distended with a grimace of delighted
mockery.

A sudden rustle within the hall and the three
ladies, fortified by a delicate lunch of a sandwich
and a cup of tea after their early morning drive
in the mountains, enough to refresh them, but
nicely calculated not to take off the edge of their
appetite for the one o'clock dinner, issued forth
to witness the wonders of the Street Fair, laugh-
ing at themselves and at each other that idleness
and vacuity in the dreary interval of waiting in
the mountains for frost could reduce them to such
a kill-time expedient as this.

The younger gentleman could not forbear his
gibes. " I have got to recoup myself for not
having been in Paris with you and Sister in June,"
he said to one of the young ladies. " But I should
really think you would have had enough of sight-
seeing for one season."

" I'm sure I'll see things here that never could
be found in Paris," she replied carelessly.

The words were trifling, but the voice, so beau-
tifully modulated, thrilled Lloyd; it was so sym-
pathetic of quality, to use a phrase that can but
slightly suggest the subtle charm it seeks to ex-
press; the very inflection was replete with indi-
viduality— it was a voice, an accent altogether new
to his experience. He lifted his eyes wistfully
toward the group.

The sunlight struck with refulgent radiance on
the dense white linen attire of the two younger

146

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ladies ; they were expanding their white parasols, of
embroidered linen like their dresses, this being the
fad of the hour, and in the intense light thus
focussed the contour and tints of their faces were
asserted with a distinctness which the momentary
glimpse could scarcely have given otherwise. Both
were evidently very young, eighteen or twenty
years of age; one was all fair blonde prettiness,
with roseate cheeks, and soft pink lips, with blue
eyes and golden hair. The face of the other was
exquisitely fair, but had no trace of roses, though
her delicate lips were of a carmine red; her soft
redundant hair was of a pale, lustreless brown ; her
eyes, of a luminous dark grey hue, were long
rather than large, with long dense black eyelashes
and black arched eyebrows, and as they caught his
glance a deep gravity fell upon them. They held
a look of recognition in that momentous gaze.
The laugh died out of her face — it was a look
as if from another world, another sphere of exist-
ence; she might have been a being of another order
of creation, so different she was from aught
else that he had ever seen; her eyes seemed im-
mortal, like the eyes of a spirit; they searched the
depths of his soul — in that moment he knew that
she saw him as he was.

It was only for a moment, however; an inap-
preciable interval of time — the next, she was all
smiling ridicule of the Street Fair, of herself and
her friends for stooping to glean amusement and
excitement in such humble and inadequate wise.

'47,

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The tread of their white shoes carried them
swiftly down the steps of the verandah, and with
the younger of the two men they took the lead,
while their chaperon followed with Jardine, one of
her gloved hands holding the back breadths of her
black taffeta skirt to one side, and impressing the
calico dames of Persimmon Cove, gazing after
her, with their first idea of the possibility of the
survival into middle life of the comely, the grace-
ful, and the elegant.

As the group disappeared, or rather as their
presence among the ever-shifting crowd was only
to be discerned by the glister of the sun upon the
white parasols, Lloyd's attention returned so reluc-
tantly to the interests of the present that he had
a sense as if he had suffered a lapse of conscious-
ness or was but awakened from the bewilderments
of a dream. A vague forlornness waited on the
moment. But as his eyes suddenly encountered
Haxon's a full realisation of the exigencies of the
situation took hold upon him. Haxon's round
face was dully red ; all the blood had rushed to his
head and was pounding at his temples; he was in
sudden wrath, and the drops of perspiration stood
on his forehead and bedewed his upper lip; his
neck looked thick and swollen and bulged in folds
above his decent white collar that gave imminent
signs of wilting. His small brown eyes flashed
and he looked at Lloyd with a rancour that im-
puted a share of blame.

" Well, — here's a go! " he said, indignantly.
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Once more Lloyd spurred up his jaded resources.

"What? — when? — how?" he asked, as if sur-
prised.

" You know you heard them jays " Haxon

paused, fairly sputtering in his indignation, " guy-
ing me an* the Royal Navy an' the whole biz.
Why n't you speak up? "

" I — what could I say? "

" Why, you could ha* stopped their mouths — >
you could ha' told them they need n't stick their
faces in it — that I was a better man, navy or no
navy, than either o' them — you could ha' told
them that they were both bug-house, an' they are,
— you could ha' knocked them both down with one
hand, and rolled them up together, and dropped
them over the side of the porch. If it had n't
been so close on to the time for the dive and the
tussle might ha' shook my nerve I'd ha' done it
myself."

Lloyd looked at him with an infinite compas-
sion, as he thus worked himself into a red-hot rage.
The subjection in which Haxon must needs hold
himself to the Moloch-like feat that so jeopardised
his life, yet by which he lived indeed, had hardly
less constraint for his confrere who so felt for his
plight. Doubtless it was this which so sharpened
Lloyd's acute expedients.

" Why, I wouldn't have touched them for the
world," he declared, and as Haxon gazed at him
speechlessly, and curiously, " they had no idea who
you are."

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Haxon could only lift the handbill and point
at the significant words " Captain Ollory — Royal
Navy — High Dive; " he did not utter a syllable.

" Well, you ain't labelled — are you ? You ain't
got a tag marked ' Captain Ollory ' tacked on
to you anywheres that I can see. They never
dreamed it was you — else they wouldn't have said
a word. They ain't a rude sort."

Haxon took this in doubtfully, his breath still
fast, his face still scarlet and dripping. " I don't
know about that," he averred, the insults to the
name and the feat he represented still rankling
deep.

" I know they never dreamed it — nobody would
ever take you for a showman in this world. You
look like something in the heavy commercial line."

Haxon drew a long breath ; he had a sense that
this was true, and as the hour for his ordeal was
drawing so near he would fain calm himself with
the realisation that there had been no insult to
be resented.

* You are the image of a drummer of the heavy
wholesale lay, white goods salesman, I should say.
I don't know what / look like," Lloyd declared,
" but I am sure they never took you for a show-

man."

Haxon was reassured. He began to reflect that
not even the practised eye of the worldlings could
have discerned Lloyd's vocation. Haxon thought
indeed that Lloyd looked as much like a man of
a high social grade as either of them, though not

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so smart. He would not have said this, however;
he grudged his friend the satisfaction of this flat-
tering theory. Yet not all at once could he quit
the theme.

" But what's the matter with the Royal Navy? "
he plained.

" It's all right," Lloyd declared.

" If * Captain Ollory ' is such a dead give away
as all that, why did you let it go on the bills? I
know / wanted it — but I did not want to be a
laughing-stock when I break my neck."

" Why, Haxon, I'm sure surprised at you —
you've bloomed out into such a confounded fool.
Of course such people as those know that ' Captain
Ollory ' is a stage name, and the ' Royal Navy ' is
to make the country folks stare. They understand
that as a little piece of business, and a mighty good
little piece it is, too, as you might know by the
way they laughed at it. They know that * Cap-
tain Ollory ' is a high-class acrobat whose real
name doesn't go on the bills, and if they don't know
that already they are going to find it out pretty
damn quick. I'm blamed if they and their ladies
ain't pretty considerable astonished when they see
that turn — it's worth forty such fairs, and they
jolly well know it."

Haxon had lifted his head; his feathers were
gradually smoothing down.

" There's the band now, taking up their posi-
tions," Lloyd admonished the acrobat.

Both men gazed down into the square where

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presently the glitter of polished brazen tubes
caught the midday sunshine amongst the shifting
groups of the country folk. Suddenly the leader
lifted his baton — there was a double ruffle of the
drums, then the wide blare of the horns surged out,
and the illuminated rare air pulsed with the regular
throb of the tempo. Haxon precipitately quitted
the verandah to assume the pink satin garments
slashed with dark red and the pink silk tights
in which " Captain Ollory of the Royal Navy "
plunged down from the giddy heights in that
" high dive " which had so astonished the popula-
tion of Kildeer County.

The summer tourists, seeking amusement in the
unaccustomed paths of the Street Fair, had not
prospered. The aspect of the untutored people
from the mountains and coves hard by — the
jostling, unkempt, jeans-clad men, the slatternly
women with snuff-brush in mouth and a wailing
infant in arms — so preponderated over the gen-
teeler element of the town that the latter was
almost unnoted and ignored.

" Poor humanity/' Ruth Laniston exclaimed
wearily ; " how uncouth, how grotesque it seems
when so near to nature's heart."

" How much man has done for man," rejoined
her cousin, Lucia Laniston, " in setting and fol-
lowing the fashions."

" Poor humanity indeed," said Mrs. Laniston,
didactically, bent on improving the opportunity.
"How can you take so superficial a view? As

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a mere example of the sensate in creation think
what a marvellous motive power is expressed in
that woman — only a bundle of muscular fibre, but
without a conscious effort she moves along this
pavement; with an involuntary impulse she sees
every item of that garden at the corner — and
really those coleus on the terrace are very fine! —
think of the curious cerebral processes of her
mental organisation "

" And then think of the curious way her skirt is
cut," the irreverent daughter laughed.

Mrs. Laniston grew squeamish presently and
balked at the idea of seeing the " freaks." Her
interest in " poor humanity " did not extend be-
yond the normal — she could not abide to view
the fat lady, nor the living skeleton, nor the wild
man.

" You ought really to see * Wick-Zoo,' " her son
urged her with a twinkling eye. " He is about as
wild as I am."

The " snake-eater " was not to be tolerated, and
the utmost wiles of the spieler could not lure her
party to his tent. The sun was beginning to be
grievously hot, and before Haxon had climbed
quite to the top of the mast the party had returned
to the verandah of the hotel, whence they shud-
deringly beheld the acrobat's graceful downward
plunge.

The ladies had retired within to rest from their
somewhat limited exertions and Frank Laniston
and Jardine were sitting on the verandah, languidly

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chatting and observing the crowd in the square,
when suddenly they perceived walking briskly
toward the hostelry a dripping serio-comic figure,
the pink satin garments party invisible beneath
an overcoat, below which, however, a pair of stal-
wart calves encased in pink silk protruded. Lloyd
was following and his distinctive face and manner
were too individual not to be instantly placed.
The tourists had not recognised in the acrobat the
respectable commercial-looking figure they had
earlier noted with Lloyd on the verandah, but as
Haxon marched stoutly up the steps he fixed them
with a serious eye and instantly both remembered
the man and their comment on the handbill in his
presence.

It was young Laniston's instinct to shrink within
himself on this discovery; he realised how deeply
this ridicule must have cut, with a keener edge that
the rudeness was obviously unintentional. His
face flushed, his eye faltered, and he hung his head.
But Jardine was very much a man of the world.
He considered that the matter could not well
be mended and hence had best be ignored. He
and his friend could not have been expected to
recognise the presence of the acrobat and rein their
speech accordingly. Perhaps this conclusion was
the more easily reached since he himself with his
habitual reserve had said little or nothing calcu-
lated to offend the sensibilities of the acrobat. He
therefore made no sign of a comprehension of the
contretemps; he bent his eyes calmly on the sort-

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ing of a sheaf of letters which he had just found
on inquiry at the post office here. But Laniston,
though quick at contention with a fair cause of
quarrel, was possessed of the generosities of good-
fellowship; he could not disregard the wound
which he had unwittingly inflicted and was eager
to assuage it. His chair was near the entrance,
and thus he accosted the acrobat, as Haxon was
about to pass, without seeming to seek an occasion
to make the amende.

" I must congratulate you, sir — a more daring
feat I never saw," his hearty young voice rang out
buoyantly, " and IVe seen some good things on
both sides of the water. I believe I have the pleas-
ure of speaking to Captain Ollory? "

" No," said Haxon, apparently contradicted by
the rills which trickled from his garments as he
paused, and the view which the open coat gave of
the saturated pink finery and tights, " that is
* — a stage name."

" Oh, I understand- " Frank Laniston

eagerly interpolated.

" Royal Navy — all rot, of course," Haxon
stipulated, including Jardine in his explanatory
glance.

" But there is no fake about the high dive,"
cried out young Laniston delightedly.

" Haxon is my name," said the acrobat, flat-
tered and at ease again. " And this is my friend
and manager, Mr. Lloyd."

" Happy to meet you, Mr. Lloyd," said Lanis-
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ton politely as they shook hands. " My name is
Laniston." Then with the easy assurance of the
very young and unthinking he continued exuber-
antly, " Let me introduce my friend, Mr. Jar-
dine," with a roguish side-glance at his stiff and
reluctant companion. Jardine shook hands, how-
ever, with the requisite courtesy, and thus the un-
lucky episode passed, resulting in naught but the
achievement of an informal introduction to the
two showmen, which fact, distasteful as it was,
did not recur to Jardine's mind until later in the
day.

The party from New Helvetia were dining at
one of the smaller round tables in the long low
room which looked out of several windows on the
formal walks and trellised arbours of an old-fash-
ioned flower garden. Here the sunshine was but
a drowsy glamour, the shadow of the house and
the foliage fell far athwart it, and th'e zinnias, the
gladioli, white and red, the roses and the pinks,
made a brilliant display of bloom. The meal was
justifying the fame of the cuisine ; the breeze flut-
tered the white jasmine that clambered about the
window hard by; there seemed scant need of
the punkahs, stoutly pulled back and forth over the
three long tables at which the public in general
was served. This little round table stood a trifle
apart in a recess, which in fact had once been a
small room, now thrown into the larger by the
removal of a partition. It was sometimes con-
signed to the use of ladies travelling alone, coming

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down from New Helvetia to take the train, the
new branch railroad having recently reached Col-
bury; or of some local politician of note, a candi-
date for Congress alighting here in stumping the
district; or of the circuit judge, or perhaps the
chancellor holding court in this division; or of
some noted revivalist bent on awakening the con-
science of a wide itinerary and here refreshing the
inner man — always the guests assigned to this
table were persons of distinction in their sort, and
the board was suspected of furnishing special dain-
ties not served to the general public.

The long tables were very orderly and decorous.
Here dined usually most of the young clerks of
the stores, a confirmed old bachelor or so, the visit-
ing lawyers and clients from a distance with cases
in court, two or three families of the place, the
inevitable exponents of " declining housekeeping,"
a few young unsettled couples, mated but not yet
nested, and to-day these were reinforced by the
more well-to-do of the country folk attending the
Fair. The Laniston party, well content in their
sequestered nook and by reason of previous ex-
perience accustomed to the situation, now and
again cast a casual glance at the long tables, but
mostly found the outlook into the fair pleached
alleys of the old garden a pleasing interlude be-
tween the mountain trout and the saddle of moun-
tain mutton, both the finest flavoured of their kind
in the world. The pungent odour of the mint
sauce was fragrant on the air; the bees were astir

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among the sweet peas and pinks in the garden
borders; a humming-bird's dainty wings fluttered
gauzily among the white jasmine blooms at the
window; suddenly the group's attention was re-
called by the commotion of a late entrance; the
head waiter strode down the room with an air of
extreme importance and drew out two chairs at the
nearest of the long narrow tables, but on its
opposite side.

Mrs. Laniston was electrified when one of two
gentlemen, ushered to these seats thus close by,
gave a polite bow of recognition toward the table
isolated in the alcove. Frank Laniston, punc-
tiliously returning it, felt with the eyes of his
mother upon him as if the sins of many sinful
years had suddenly found him out. Jardine, with
a sense of desperate ambush, formulated in his
inner consciousness some hitherto suppressed con-
victions concerning the " freshness " of the hobble-
de-hoy estate, and expressed his feeling of annoy-
ance in a very stiff and formal bow — only
vouchsafed indeed lest worse things ensue. Not
until after both had spoken did Lloyd bow, and
then as stiffly and haughtily as Jardine himself.

" Why, Mr. Jardine, I didn't know that you
had acquaintances here," said Mrs. Laniston won-
deringly, in a low, reproachful voice and with her
eyes discreetly averted. " Who is that tremen-
dously handsome man whom you seem to be keep-
ing to yourself? "

" The stout gentleman ? " suggested her son,

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blushing and considerably out of countenance, but
bursting with the inopportune and irrespressible
mirth of youth.

" Be still, Francis — of course not. But who
was that distinguished-looking young gentleman
who bowed directly to you, Mr. Jardine? " she
asked.

Mr. Jardine had some affection, real or fancied,
that menaced the well-being of his liver, and he
had sacrificed to it considerable time in drinking
the water of the New Helvetia Springs. While
in that region 'he had contracted an affection, real
or fancied, of the heart, the exactions of which
Would in no wise permit him to depart thence until
the Laniston covey should have flown southward.
The intimacy which the gradual desertion of the
«pa had fostered between the few remaining guests,
waiting till the fall of frost in their Southern homes
should dispel the danger of contracting the yellow
fever, that had earlier raged in those cities, had
been a favouring element to his attachment, and he
had greatly rejoiced in its soft thralls. But now
this friendship for the family had placed upon him
a certain indirect responsibility in their whimsical,
futile outing to the rural amusement of the Street
Fair in Colbury. He had, of course, no control
of the Laniston cub, nor of Mrs. Laniston, her-
self. Yet should aught supervene unbecoming or
unworthy of the position of the party in any sort,
however elicited by their own idiosyncrasies, it
would seem that he, experienced, worldly-wise, as

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he was, should have guarded them from it. He
knew that the two Laniston brothers, who had fled
from the yellow fever in their city homes only as
far as their respective plantations, were infinitely
absorbed since the early opening of the cotton bolls
and the prospect of speedy shipments of the crop,
and glad enough to delegate their family cares, on
the theory that Jardine would of course look after
anything that Frank could not handle. Jardine
lifted his eyes for a moment and observed Haxon's
small bright orbs, staring across the long table with
the frankest hardihood at the two young ladies,
whose fair faces were only slightly shaded by the
dainty embroidered frills of their wide white lin-
gerie hats which, for some mysterious reason that
Jardine could never fathom, they still saw fit to
wear at table. He had a fear that Haxon could
interpret perhaps the motion of his lips — then he
reflected that the acrobat was not troubling himself
to gaze at him.

" That," Jardine replied to Mrs. Laniston with
deliberate cruelty, " that ' distinguished-looking
young gentleman ' is the manager of the Street
Fair."

There was a momentary silence.

" Oh, Mr. Jardine," cried Lucia Laniston, " I
— do — not — believe — you . ' '

This was the voice that Lloyd had heard on the
verandah earlier in the day, low, soft, yet so keyed
that distinctness hung on its every intonation — or
was it that the distance was slight? — or was it that

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all space could not have annulled its vibrations to
his receptive ear? He could not know what had
elicited the words, and his instincts forbade the cool
stare of absorbed interest with which Haxon per-
mitted himself to participate in the entertainment
of the party at the round table. Lloyd only saw
that Jardine's thin cheek reddened as if in sur-
prised annoyance, that he was laughing in mirthless
embarrassment, and that Mrs. Laniston was re-
buking her niece. " My dear — how can you? —
But Mr. Jardine, this does seem impossible."

" I met him on the hotel verandah this morning,
— he was introduced to me, — only casually of

course."

Frank Laniston had no particular affinity with
deceit, but his mother, adoring as she was, had
yet her captious and severe traits, and he did not
care to take upon himself the onus of having
compassed the introduction to the two show-
men. He sagely opined that Jardine was better
panoplied against her weapons than he — in fact
Jardine would not be called upon to sustain her
attack. It would be presumed that all his actions
were within the limit of the appropriate and judi-
cious, and they would not be questioned. He
could not quench the sparkle in his eyes as they
met the grave regards of the elder man, on whose
shoulders he had shifted the burden of his own
cubbish faux pas, and he did not realise how little
the adolescent type which he exemplified appealed
at this moment to Jardine's predilections. Indeed

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he esteemed Jardine a friend of his own, attached
by a perception of his good qualities already
budded, and his promise of better still to come, and
had no idea that if it had not been for the attrac-
tions of one of his feminine relatives he would have
long ago been thrown overboard, as it were, and
would never have had the opportunity to tie up the
straggling, unpruned, untrained vines of his rank,
crude convictions to the stanch supports of Jar-
dine's standards. Frank Laniston was one of the
conditions of the opportunity to enjoy the society
of Miss Lucia Laniston, as was the epidemic of
yellow fever raging in the South, and Jardine was
fain to submit like a philosopher to the admixture
of evils in various degrees with the happiness he
experienced in the present, and sought in the future.

" Dear me — you don't say." Mrs. Laniston
cast but one casual glance at the subject of the
conversation, and then turned to the discussion of
her ice-cream. She was never the woman to hold
on to hot iron when she had once burned her
fingers. She had forgotten the man's fine carriage
and handsome face before she had finished explain-
ing that this kind of country ice cream, which was
frozen custard in fact, figured always at metro-
politan hotels as Neapolitan ice cream.

" The Great Smoky ice — how would that read
on an up-to-date menu? " suggested Frank, plying
his fork.

Mrs. Laniston was not altogether unaware of
Haxon's bead-like gaze, and she was disposed to

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hurry the young ladies through the discussion of
their Indian peaches and grapes.

" You will have plenty of those peaches at New
Helvetia," she urged.

" But not till to-morrow," said Lucia.

" Let me order the coffee, now."

" For mercy's sake, mamma," the loitering Ruth
remonstrated.

" I'm as hungry as a hunter — yet," the brown-
haired, poetic-eyed Lucia averred. But she af-
fected no ethereal delicacy or daintiness. She had
enjoyed her dinner and meant to finish it with due
relish.

Mr. Jardine laughed with unexpected leniency
and directed her choice to a great deeply red Indian
peach, the biggest, the most luscious in the old-
fashioned white-and-gilt china basket.

" I believe the juice in this would fill a cup,"
she said solemnly.

" No doubt," he assented.

" Blood-red," she looked at it on the spoon.

" A beautiful tint," he agreed.

" And s-s-s-sweet," she fairly kissed it with her
delicate, carmine lips.

" Why, Lucia, what a gourmande you seem,"
said her aunt.

" Bah, all the rest of you are as old as the hills
and have got the dyspepsia, except Ruth and me —
so you grudge us our good appetites and our nice
dinner."

" I'm not old," said Frank with his adolescent
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laugh, half growl, half chuckle. " I haven't got
the dyspepsia."

" No, but you have got the cigarette habit —
which amounts to the same thing."

" Coffee, waiter," said Mrs. Laniston succinctly.
Not a very wise or witty conversation certainly,
but it was not for Haxon.

With the peculiar carrying quality of Lucia's
voice every word she uttered was distinct to Lloyd.
He could not hear what was said by the others,
albeit she spoke no louder. Now and then Frank's
facetious growl seemed to slip the leash and a
phrase or a laugh became distinguishable. Lloyd
had some instinct that stood him in stead for breed-
ing, for tuition, for experience. He would not
unduly urge Haxon, but men of their hurried mode
of life make swift work of meals and might be
called "very valiant trenchermen." They had
both finished a repast unusually loitering before the
Laniston party had fairly entered upon the fruit
course. He threw his napkin on the table and
started to his feet ere Haxon's glance of pro-
test could reach him. Then ruefully followed by
the acrobat they left the room before the Laniston
party could gather themselves together for their
avoidance.

A silence ensued at the round table while Jardine
leisurely cracked almonds in search of a philopena
which he was pledged to eat with Ruth, and Mrs.
Laniston trifled with her black coffee.

" Where's your hurry, now, Aunt Dora? " asked
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The Windfall

Lucia, her eyes narrowing mischievously, and
Ruth laughed in delight, growing very alluringly
pink as she gazed teasingly at her mother.

Mrs. Laniston was distinctly out of countenance.
" Oh, you two girls ! — you will be the death of
me. I wish you would try to be more circumspect
in the presence of company."

" Meaning Mr. Jardine," Lucia turned in an
explanatory manner to Ruth, her face grave but
her eyes alight with fun.

" Meaning Mr. Jardine," Ruth turned in an
explanatory manner to Lucia, likewise grave but
with her face pink and her blue eyes dancing.

Then they both collapsed in a gush of silent
laughter, which they half buried in their clusters
of grapes.

" Oh, I'm sure I don't know what I shall do
with them! I feel like apologising to you for
them, Mr. Jardine," Mrs. Laniston protested.

"Oh, don't mind me, I beg," said Jardine,
laughing.

" Oh, don't mind him, he begs," said Lucia with
an explanatory nod to Ruth.

" Oh, don't mind him, he begs," said Ruth,
gravely explaining to Lucia.

Then ensued the usual burst of silvery laughter.

" They simply distract me — the two of them ; "
Mrs. Laniston, after an involuntary laugh, ad-
dressed Jardine. " You will hardly believe me,
Mr. Jardine, but my Ruth was so good, oh, an
angel [the look they cast on one another, while

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Jardine struggled in vain to listen gravely amidst
this foolery], before Lucia came to live with me.
And Lucia's father, George Laniston — my hus-
band's brother, you know, — says that when Lucia
was at her own home she was a very mouse of
a little girl [again that disqualifying look at each
other]. And now, together they aid and abet
each other in all manner of absurdity and — and —
wildness — that's just what it gets to, sometimes —
just wildness."

" Sad," said Jardine, eyeing the twain indul-
gently.

They were both munching grapes just now and
took no notice.

" They ought to be separated," said Frank, with
his capable air. " Offer a premium to the one who
gets married first."

" The blessed man would be premium enough,"
Lucia declared, " if we just could catch him."

" Oh, my dear, think how your voice carries,"
her aunt hastily admonished her.

" Why, he, whoever he may be, might hear it
and come to the rescue."

There was a moment's silence, filled with grapes.

" Mamma thinks that we never see anything,"
said Ruth, with a very knowing air.

" Didn't he stare? " commented Lucia.

" Who? — the very handsome man that mamma
thought Mr. Jardine was monopolising and deny-
ing her his acquaintance ? " said Frank, with his
callow chuckle.

" Oh, no/1 Ruth's voice affected a dreary ca-
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dence. " He didn't so much as lift his eyelashes,
— his very — long — eyelashes."

" It was the other one then," said Frank, " the
bullet-eyed acrobat."

" It doesn't matter in the least, Francis," said
Mrs. Laniston, with dignity.

" That manager is really the handsomest man I
ever saw," said the discreet Frank. " The clerk
of the hotel tells me that he is so considered by
everybody. In Duroc's celebrated painting of
1 The Last Day,' he is posed as the angel Gabriel.
Why, his nickname is * Beauty ' — he goes among
his pals by the euphonious appellation of * Beaut '
Lloyd."

Frank had finished his dinner and he was
showing some inclination to rock his chair to and
fro; he imagined that this was why his mother
frowned at him.

" What is his real name? " Lucia asked, unex-
pectedly.

"Why, child, how should he know?" Mrs.
Laniston had risen, and tapped sharply on her
niece's shoulder with rather admonitory knuckly
fingers.

" Why, Francis passed his exams all right; I
should think that he was far enough advanced to
be able to construe the hotel register at all events."

"And there he is enrolled as Hilary Chester
Lloyd," said Frank genially.

" Not a bad name," said Ruth casually.

" Rather humble for the manager of the great-
est show on earth," laughed Frank. " Finest high

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dive artist in the world, Captain Ollory of the
Royal Navy, Flying Lady, Fat Lady, Snake-eater
— eats 'em alive, — biggest boa constrictor, living
skeleton, largest Ferris Wheel "

Lucia's face turned deeply crimson as she lis-
tened to this farrago. She did not know why she
should blush for the manager — he certainly did
not think it necessary to blush for himself. To
divert attention from the mounting flush in her
face she remarked as she rose from the table, " I'm
going up in the Ferris Wheel at any rate."

" And so am I," said Ruth. " I'll snatch that
joy while it is within my reach."

The turmoil they anticipated ensued instantly.

"For heaven's sake," Mrs. Laniston solemnly
adjured them. " Mr. Jardine, in pity on me let's
get them back to the mountains. They will rack
my nerves to pieces. The idea — to go up in a Fer-
ris Wheel!"

" It is not an intellectual amusement, nor ele-
gant in any sense, but it is perfectly safe," said
Jardine.

" I have been east and west and north and south,
yet was I never in a Ferris Wheel," said Lucia,
locking her arm in Ruth's as they stood by the table
preparatory to issuing from the room.

" I have crossed the ocean, I have visited the
Colosseum by moonlight, I have explored — a little
way — the Catacombs, yet was I never in a Ferris
Wheel," echoed Ruth.

" I have * swum in a gondola,' I have viewed
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the pyramids at Qhizeh, I have ridden cross-saddle
in the Yosemite, yet was I never in a Ferris
Wheel," declared Lucia.

" I have seen the Rock of Gibraltar, I have stood
beneath the Eiffel tower, I have visited the Street
Fair at Colbury, yet was I never in a Ferris
Wheel," Ruth took up the antistrophe.

Mrs. Laniston had less their safety in mind than
the staring of the bullet-eyed acrobat, and the
fascinations of the long, unlifted eyelashes of the
Beauty-man.

"If you can endure to stay with them every
minute of the time, Mr. Jardine," she consented,
conditionally. " Don't trust them to Francis—*
he is so irresponsible and flighty and young."

She felt very certain that Jardine's gravity and
dignity would over-awe any possibility of an ap-
proach to familiarity which a lack of knowledge
of the world on the part of the rustics, or the irre-
pressible gaiety of his youthful charges might
superinduce.

" I'll take them first to a concert of * high class
singing,' " Jardine said, and for his life he could
not forbear a laughing grimace. " I think the sun
is a little too high and too hot as yet for the fasci-
nations of the Ferris Wheel."

Then joined by Frank he accompanied the two
out on the verandah and down the flight of steps
as once more with their white parasols aglare in
the sunlight they took their way through the crowd
in the square.

169

CHAPTER IX

HILARY LLOYD had had his doubts as
to how serious a view Haxon might take
of his discovery of the moonshining en-
terprise that had contrived to utilise to its own
profit the presence here of the Street Fair. With
the return of the morning light and its renewal of
courage and hope the possible suspicion of a coali-
tion of these interests seemed to him more remote
than heretofore. His own association with the
moonshiner's family might perhaps be most nat-
urally interpreted as an accident, a fortuitous cir-
cumstance, and the extreme publicity of the
appearance of the manager of the show both in
the company of the girl and the old grandam
would be presumed to imply an unconsciousness, an
entire freedom from complicity on his part. All
the morning, in a sub-acute process of the mind,
he had argued these premises, pro and con. While
he laboured to reassure the acrobat, to freshen his
nerve, to flatter his composure, to reinstate his
pride, so grievously cut down in the episode of the
handbill, these mental exercises were hardly pre-
termitted for a moment. When, however, the
perilous feat was once more safely performed and
Haxon had been fed, and his nerves recuperated,
Lloyd, feeling that the moment for the absolutely

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The Windfall

essential revelation had arrived and could no longer
be postponed, drew him aside and intimated that
he had disclosures to make of an importance that
necessitated closed doors. Together they ascended
the stairs to the room they shared, and even there
Lloyd looked out on the balcony and down the
cross-hall before he began his story.

" Gosh! " exclaimed Haxon irritably. "What's
up? You scare me to death! You're gone bug-
house, that's what! "

Lloyd was altogether unprepared for the ap-
palled horror that overmastered the acrobat's every
power of reasoning when the disclosure was once
made. It was as if the dungeons of the Federal
prisons were all agape for him, and he could not
escape. For some time Lloyd could only induce
him to make an effort for composure by warning
him that his gasps, his half articulate exclamations
like cries, so shrill and sudden they were, his dis-
ordered, hasty strides about the room — he actually
fell in one of these, jarring the whole floor of the
house — would bring inquiry upon them and a sur-
prise that, unexplained, as it needs must be, would
develop into suspicion, and this the briefest investi-
gation would lead to complete discovery of the
facts with their trail of false accusation.

Lloyd had expected co-operation and a division
of the responsibility of devising a plan of action.
He had a fund of excellent common sense. He
realised that he was a man of most limited edu-
cation, of an experience curiously restricted, and

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The Windfall

he did not flatter himself that he had any special
native gifts of perspicacity and logic. He felt the
need of help and he had longed for this moment of
liberation from the solitary torment of his fears —
for the sense of a comrade's support and the men-
tal attrition of a mind fresh to these weary prob-
lems. The force with which he was flung back on
his own resources stunned his capacities for the
time being. The revelation had only increased the
danger of immediate discovery in the absolute col-
lapse of Haxon's self-control. Lloyd used argu-
ment and persuasion, and finally resorted to
menacing warnings.

" You'll give the whole thing away to the au-
thorities before we can have a moment's counsel
together and see what we can do."

" What can we do?" cried Haxon, his palms
outspread dolorously. "We are caught here like
a rat in a trap — we can't get away. God! If I
had thirty-five dollars in the world I'd cut and run,
and leave you to shift for yourself."

Lloyd eyed him critically.

" Haxon, how can you show so much courage
and nerve in that cursed high dive of yours and be
such a coward in a crisis like this? " he demanded
sternly.

' 'Cause why? 'Cause the high dive is biz, but
'tain't my trade to defy the Federal courts for of-
fences I have never c'mitted."

He felt the aspersion on his courage — the lash
cut his somewhat thick sensibilities.

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The Windfall

" Look here, Hil'ry " He sat down astride

on a chair, facing its back and beating out on its
wooden rim the several points as he made them.
" If I was in the illicit distilling lay I'd be fixed for
the biz, and I'd take my risks along with the profits
as cool as I do in the high dive. I'd be where I
was known, too, — at home, — an' there'd be some
chanst of friends to back you, an' lawyers for hire,
an' money at hand — 't wouldn't be at the end of
a blue fizzle on the road. But here wheer I don't
actually know so much as the name of the clerk of
the hotel! I haven't got a fiver to save my
life!"

He turned the pockets of his trousers inside out
to demonstrate his impecuniosity, and his aspect
as he sat thus, his round face pallid, and his hair
roached and standing straight in front, might have
suggested the ludicrous to another man, but to
Hilary Lloyd it only accented and illustrated the
stress of the untoward situation.

" I couldn't get a nickel by telegraphing — even
if I left the wire to be paid at the other end, for
I raised every cent I could scrape to start the show
out on the road ; and you are in the same fix. An'
here are you an' I an' all the men in the company
in this strange place, liable to arrest and jail for
aiding and abetting in the illicit sale of wild-cat
whisky— oh Lord!" His great full voice rose
plangent on the air.

" I'll cut your tongue out if you lay it again to
them words! " declared Lloyd, in a frenzy of ap-

173

'The Windfall

prehension. He darted to the door and opening
it gazed down the cross-halls to detect a possible
eavesdropper. He then hastened to the window
and looked out on the balcony. There was no one
near — no suggestion that suspicion had been
aroused. He returned to his chair, reassured, but
tingling with the excitement of the disastrous possi-
bility and both angry and dismayed.

" What do you sit there, spouting all that
preachment at me for? I know it as well or better
than you; didn't I find the thing out and tell you
how it stood? What do you suppose I did that
for? To hear you spit it all out again? "

"What did you do it for?" Haxon eyed him
sullenly.

" To get your help — you are a partner in the
biz; you had a right to know."

Haxon looked as if he esteemed it a right with
which he would willingly have dispensed.

" YouVe got my nerve all tore up," he com-
plained.

" That ain't the question — what are we goin'
to do about it?"

Haxon, as he still sat facing the back of the
chair, took the ends of his pockets in the tips of
his fingers and held them out to their extreme
limits.

" What can we do — nothing! "

Lloyd looked balked and despairing. He had
hoped so much, waited so long, with such torturing
silence and self-repression for this appeal for the

The Windfall

help of his friend and partner. He gazed du-
biously at the attitude and face, all illustrative of
the idea of absolute collapse, and then he slowly
and laboriously gathered himself together. He
felt like a pugilist, who, lunging with great force,
has caught a heavy fall in the ring. He was game,
however, game to the last.

" Well, / don't throw up the sponge," he said
at length. " That's a trick I've never learned.
We can do something ! You watch me right close
and keep a shut mouth, and sit tight, and you'll
see something doing."

He nodded his head determinedly. Haxon,
watching him doubtfully, could experience no re-
newal of activity, no revival of hope. His facul-
ties were completely prostrated. He could only
fear.

" Now, go slow," he said, irritably anxious.

* You be bound I will," Lloyd reassured him.

A dull curiosity began to grow in Haxon's eyes
that yet winced from the question.

" I have got a right to know. I'm a partner,
and what you do will implicate me."

" I've a good mind to roll you on the floor till
you're as thin as a sheet of paper," the athlete
threatened, "only it's too good a stunt without
a crowd. You may bet your immortal soul that
nothing / do will implicate you or any other man."

" I just wanted to warn you," said Haxon
mildly.

" I was warned beforehand," Lloyd protested.
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The Windfall

The mental activity, the canvass for expedients
that Lloyd had sought to rouse in Haxon's mind
seemed now stimulated by the cessation of urgency
on the manager's part. A vague sense of being
shut out of his counsels was stirring uneasily in
Haxon's consciousness — it put out a clutch after
the plans in which he would not share.

" Now you take care you don't make no mis-
take."

" Try not, — for my own sake, — but I'm not in-
fallible," said Lloyd. His interest in Haxon's im-
pressions had evaporated. Since Haxon had
neither adequate aid nor well-considered advice to
offer, and no fund of courage to recruit and re-
animate the flagging energies of his partner, it did
not matter how his vague conjecture skirmished
about the point of attack and plan of action.

* You be sure you don't get into a hole "

Haxon paused. " You ain't thinking about giv-
ing the information to the authorities? " his small
keen eyes kindled with the contemplation of this
course.

" Certainly not," said Lloyd listlessly. He had
drawn off his cuffs that had begun to wilt at the
edges and was slipping the sleeve-links of oxydised
silver into a fresh pair that, leaning back in his
chair, he had reached from the tray of an open
trunk.

" But you know the informer gets good pay.
The government always pays like smoke." Haxon,
now that his speculations, his proffers of plans,

The Windfall

his advice were not solicited seemed bent on evolv-
ing and laying them before his companion. " We
might get enough that way to defray the cost of
the company's transportation to New York."

" We'd be much likelier to be laid by the heels
for false arrest, for we couldn't prove any illicit
distilling or sale, either. Besides, we'd get our
heads shot off for playing the spy and informer;
that's etiquette in this region."

" You'd better think about that reward, now
Hil'ry," the acrobat eagerly urged. " You ain't
afraid of getting shot, nor nothing else. You're
holding back for another reason. There's a
woman in the case ! "

Lloyd looked up with a certain expectation and
a deepening of the roseate flush on his fair, girlish
cheek.

" You don't want to inform on them folks on
account of that gal. You've gone and got mashed
on a mountain singing-gal — the pals all say the
public don't fall to her racket not the least little
bit."

" Oh," said Lloyd, as if with sudden compre-
hension— had he thought Haxon was alluding to
another woman here? He came visibly back, as
from some far digression of thought.

" There's no use talking about that, Hax. I've
been all along there — in fact, there ain't a by-path
through this tangled torment that my mind ain't
travelled since the show opened up. The reward
would be paid for conviction, not for suspicion.

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The Windfall

No man gets paid for suspecting. We couldn't
wait till the moonshiners were arrested and con-
victed in court — eat our heads off in that time, if
anybody would credit us for the grub-stakes."

Haxon's face fell, so strong a hold had his now
unsought plans taken upon him.

" Besides," Lloyd argued, rising from his chair,
"our grounds of suspicion ain't firm underfoot;
even the authorities ain't sure enough to venture
to arrest the Pinnotts. They don't even molest the
drunken men that were fairly sprawling all over
the town this morning. They'll point the way they
have travelled before long. The authorities are
waiting for bigger game — laying for the moon-
shiners."

The terrors of the situation seized Haxon again :
The suspicion that the street fair had at least some
knowledge of this popular adjunct to its attrac-
tions; the obvious fact that it mujst profit immeas-
urably by the lures offered a dry town to draw a
crowd; the unlucky publicity of the intimacy that
the manager of the show had struck up with the
old moonshiner and the several members of his
family; the incongruity that his daughter had be-
come a temporary member of the company, and
had a place on the daily programme, doing a
" stunt " that had no value whatever in the public
eye, and might thus seem a tribute of flattery to a
powerful coadjutor; the certainty that without this
recruiting of the moonshine whisky-drinking ele-
ment in the scantily populated region the fair could

[The Windfall

hardly have lived through the first day's perform-
ance— all were close meshes in such a net that the
acrobat could hardly hope to escape thence.
• " Oh, Hil'ry — we have worked so hard. I don't
see no sense nor justice in our gettin' tangled up
this fashion." He bowed his head on the chair
back and groaned aloud.

" Now you look here," said Lloyd — he sum-
moned a mental attention and was not disconcerted
when Haxon did not lift his head. " You listen to
me. I'm going to see this thing through. You
just keep your tongue between your teeth and don't
bat your eye, and watch me, and vou'll see some-
thing doing ! "

v His confidence revived Haxon's hopes, though
he retained his despondent attitude after he heard
the tread of Lloyd's feet slowly descending the
stairs. Perhaps it was well for the preservation
of his composure that he did not see the deep de-
pression the manager's face expressed while in the
solitary transit down the flight, nor hear the half-
smothered groan that dropped from his lips. He
had wasted much time for naught in hanging his
hopes on this futile interview. He was now ex-
actly at the point whence he had started. Time
meant money — the increase of the expenses of the
show in a ratio with which the gate receipts by
no means kept pace. Time meant danger, the
continual challenge of disastrous possibilities, and
that these were formulating somewhere, somehow,
he did not doubt for a moment. He paused when

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The Windfall

he reached the bottom of the flight and glanced
through a window of a side hall that had an out-
look in the direction of the sylvan nook where
Shadrach Pinnott had planted his staff. He had
a vague, indeterminate disposition to make a tour
of discovery thither, to satisfy himself — to see, per-
chance— wild hope — if his suspicions were not
merely the result of his over-anxious facile fears.
All the world knows that dry towns are only dry
in spots, and perhaps the fact that the populace
had been so called into the streets by the presence
of the show made the pervasive evidences of liquor
more obvious. Alack, his first glance from the
window proved the tenuity of this reasoning. The
farthest man he could see along the street com-
ing from that direction was wiping his mouth
with the back of his hand; then amidst a file of
ordinary pedestrians two came affectionately clasp-
ing each other around the waist, under the firm
conviction that four legs can better compass loco-
motion than two, when all are so unsteady, on the
theory of strength in numbers, perhaps. No one
took notice, apparently, of the aberrations of this
method of progression, but he reflected it would be
only the gratification of a morbid anxiety to visit
the spot, and his presence there might add an ele-
ment of curiosity and speculation to a circumstance
already unduly suspicious. As he came out into the
square he noticed with a sort of melancholy satis-
faction how well the show was running in all its
various departments, how orderly it was, how

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The Windfall

mindful of its best possibilities, how cheerful and
brisk the performers and spielers, all unprescient,
poor souls I It was like a well-oiled piece of ma-
chinery, automatic, scarcely needing the eye of the
manager. He cast a glance upward at the town
clock — it was already time for the afternoon con-
cert; at that moment he heard the tuning of the
violins and a booming note from the bassoon.
As he entered the tent he remarked that the light
within was tempered, mellow, and his artistic taste
was refreshed by this — it would aid the effect of
the lime-light on the stage which should simulate
sunshine amongst the dappling shadows of the
peach tree leaves.

The audience crowded the tent, to his surprise,
for this " stunt " had proved no favourite perform-
ance with the public, and, since already seen, it had
no claims to novelty. Then he realised the cause
of this accumulation of spectators ; in the best seats
in the centre of the place was Mr. Jardine, his
jaded, slightly disdainful, thin, grave, thoughtful
face easily discriminated among the many that
seemed turned out of a mould, custom made, so
commonplace they were. The fresh, bright, candid
countenance of the young collegian was near at
hand, and between the two, radiant in their white
dresses and hats, and with their flower-like faces,
exquisitely fair and dainty, looking expectantly to-
ward the stage, half amused at their own readiness
to be entertained with these slight trifles, were the
two belated summer birds of New Helvetia: The

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entrance of so distinguished a party had already
made the "high class concert" the fashion; the
best element of the town was present, and this had
been reinforced by the profanum vulgus of the
street, for whatever the town folks found accep-
table the rural wight cautiously sampled, often
decrying and ridiculing while secretly approving
and imitating. There were many sunbonnets, and
snuff-brushes, and big wool hats, and bushy beards,
but the dapper townsmen were in greater numbers
than heretofore and the Misses Laniston did not
wear the only be-frilled millinery that the tent dis-
played. It was an audience of no mean intelligence,
and poor Lloyd realised that were he free from
the gnawing wild beasts of secret anxiety and har-
rowing doubt and actual fear, his showman's heart
would have beat high with the determination to
stretch every nerve and do his best devoir. Even
as it was there was no use in permitting the second
violin to enter upon the fugues of the little over-
ture very distinctly sharp to his acute and accurate
ear. He had taken a seat near the orchestra, and
he suddenly stood up and signed with a wave of
the hand to catch the performer's attention. The
man turned the screw slightly, and twanged the
string. While Hilary Lloyd stood, his head slightly
bent, with a face of motionless, intent interest, his
hat in his hand, he heard distinctly, besides the
violin's keen vibration, the sudden snap of the
shutter of a camera. He nodded approval to
the violinist, but his eyes followed the camera's

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sound. Ruth's flower-like face was pink with
smiles and Lucia's long, romantic eyes were Bright
with triumphant daring. The two cavaliers were
distinctly disconcerted as their eyes met Lloyd's.
It was only for a moment ; the manager affected to
look over the house, then turning, resumed hi? scat,
and the overture broke briskly forth.

" Lucia," her cousin Frank growled under rover
of the music, " you had better mind. You will be
led out by the ear, if you don't look out."

" I should be delighted to have my ear distin-
guished in any way, here, where a fine ear is made
so conspicuous," she twittered in response.

" But the violins are all in accord now, and
that second one was out of tune before," said
Ruth.

" In printing the film I shall take special pains
with so fine an ear," said Lucia.

"You can't fool me," gurgled Frank. "You
snapped him because the fellow looked so con-
foundedly handsome at the moment. You never
dreamed that the place was still enough for the
click of the button to betray you. There's nothing
green in my eye ! "

" You two must be a little more careful, if I
may venture to say so," suggested Mr. Jardine,
who really was somewhat aghast at the camera epi-
sode— exceedingly discommoded by the grave eye
of the manager and nervous lest some neighbour
might have noticed the incident. " Even in a rustic
community," he continued, " it won't do to take it

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for granted that there are no people who know
what — er — er ' '

" Good manners are," suggested Lucia.

" I beg a thousand pardons — but I did not say
that."

" Worse still, you implied it. You rejoice in
being enigmatical." Then she turned to Ruth.
" Think of poor Mrs. Jardine (when he finds her)
•—having to pick out his meaning from implica-
tions."

"The dear lady (when he finds her) — he will
train her to deduce the state of his affections from
statistics."

Then they both collapsed behind their white
fans, over which they looked at each other with
bright eyes, brimful of laughter. The mythical
Mrs. Jardine (when he should find her) was one
of their favourite subjects of retort when no rea-
sonable justification was at hand, and they spent
much time in adjusting and readjusting her traits.
Oddly enough, for so sane and grave a man, this
folly teased him, which fact afforded them ex-
treme delight.

They were incomprehensible to him in more ways
than one, but generally he gave this hardly a lan-
guid thought, ascribing it to the idiosyncrasies of
the feminine mind, which according to the popular
persuasion was adjusted to a peculiar poise. Now,
however, he puzzled over the theory of their con-
duct, which both nettled and embarrassed him.
In any metropolitan crowded centre, in any station

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of fashionable society, he knew from experience
that their graceful propriety of demeanour, their
air of delicate reserve, their instinct for the right
word at the right moment, the soft youthful dig-
nity which they could conserve, were matters for
all admiration; he had relished greatly 'being ad-
mitted behind this conventional formal pose into
the intimacies of familiar friendship where he saw
them as they really were, in their natural girlish
relaxation from the conventions of general society.
But here was a new phase. They were recklessly
conspicuous ; they cared naught for the opinions of
the rustic crowd — indeed what they did and said
was likely to be presumed the fashion of the time
and the fad of the day. " I like to be where I
know nobody, and where nobody knows me,"
Lucia had declared, in reply to a covert admonition
which he had ventured; " I feel so easy. What is
that story of a knight of old who had a magic
armour that protected him from sight, and he went
through the camps of his enemies all unsuspected.
That is how I feel; I feel invisible."

Mr. Jardine had not expected that they would
adopt the Colbury standards and sit demurely still,
as if conscious, in this little sphere, of the regards
of all the world; that they would sparingly con-
verse in the lowest of tones and with solicitude for
the effect of their words. They could but be indif-
ferent to criticism and. maintain a certain independ-
ence in so limited an environment. But it did
seem to him that they had reached the extreme of

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toleration in the episode of the camera. Of course
he realised that Lucia had never expected the click
of the instrument to acquaint the subject that she
had sought and caught his photograph, but in this
contretemps she perceived only an amazing jest
at her own expense, of a delightful and unprece-
dented savour. She almost perished with laughter
and ridicule of herself and seemed to have no care
nor fear of the opinion of the man and this man a
stranger, of low station, of most questionable posi-
tion, who might take bitter offence, or venture some
impertinence, or seek reprisal in some wise intoler-
able to her and her friends. For his own part
Jardine was the same in every circumstance of life ;
formal, civil, conventional, reserved. However
the kaleidoscope of environment shifted he did not
change, and his standards were unalterable. He
sought to reflect that they were both very young;
they were like birds, thus freed for the nonce from
the frumpish restrictions of the stereotyped dulness
of their cage. They were like irresponsible school-
girls, liberated from the cast-iron class-room rules;
indeed it was not long since both were hard and
fast in these restraints; they were like children,
thinking no ill, confident or careless of approval,
enjoying the passing moment, freighted with scanty
opportunity for pleasure though it was, with a zest,
a delight, a buoyancy of spirit, a capacity to evolve
fun from serious conditions which Jardine could
not have compassed at any period of his career.
But he realised that there was more responsibility

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in the office of their chaperon than he had deemed
possible when he had assumed Mrs. Laniston's
charge and left her to her well-earned rest at the
hotel.

Suddenly the tempo of the music changed; the
subtle charm of a simple old melody was pulsing
on the air and now it dwindled into a vague di-
minuendo, and then to a pizzicato echo, in the
midst of which a clear, brilliant voice sounded sing-
ing in the distance. The curtain went up with a
rush; the stage was revealed flooded with yellow
sunlight and all a-dapple with the shadows of
swaying peach-leaves from boughs waving in the
wind above. ;'sAnd what was that effect? How
could they have such strangely perfect scenery —
the purple mountains, the azure ranges of the dis-
tance, the blue sky bedight with a cloud all opal
and gold, and a river with a crystalline reflex
of its splendour. Before the simple expedient of
dropping a section of the canvas occurred to their
minds a figure, lightsome, airy, featly dancing,
bounded into the illuminated centre of the scene.
There was one moment of 'amazed scrutiny — it was
like some classic canephora of painting or sculp-
ture ; then the eye recognised in the basket-like ves-
sel poised on the head, filled with trailing vines and
purple grape clusters, the familiar cedar piggin of
the mountains; the antique-draped garb was but
the up-caught skirt of the conventional make, but
with the yellow folds so craftily held in plaits that
they sustained a wealth of the grapes, picturesquely

The Windfall

trailing down over a dark wine-tinted petticoat,
short enough to disclose ankles and feet of a
wonderful agility. The auburn hair, soft, fluffy,
rayonnant, was coiled in a knot of negligent charm,
and the head was thrown back as the dancer
leaped with incredible lightness and grace, catch-
ing with one hand toward the lure of a peach
on a bough out of her reach, now and then
lifting it to poise the basket, singing in a clear,
true, sweet voice the lilting measures of the old
song. It was a short " turn " ; she knew but the
single stanza. The effect was like some radiant,
transient vision, the fleeting allurement of the senses
in a dream, as the curtain suddenly descended, the
light went out, and the vibrating echo of the violins
ceased.

A moment of silent surprise ; then the sound of
the clapping of one enthusiastic pair of hands, and
presently the tent rocked with a tumult of applause.

" By George — that's great ! " cried Frank Lanis-
ton, red in the face from his exertions, his hands
banging together like machinery. He gazed in
sympathy at Jardine, who was fairly startled out
of his composure and applauding with a will.

" It is absolutely beautiful, and perfectly
unique," he exclaimed.

The two young ladies were trying what re-
sources of clatter the sticks of their white fans
might compass as they struck them against the
palms of their small white gloved hands.

The man in the old whitish grey coat, whom
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Lloyd had noticed earlier in the audience, experien-
cing renewed anxiety lest some inimical espionage
might account for his purchase of a ticket to a per-
formance so ludicrous to his taste, sat in the midst
of the clamour as still as if he had been carved in
stone. The enthusiasm had illumined all faces save
his — some subtle shadow of despondency had fallen
upon it. He no longer held it half muffled in the
high collar and lapels of the big old coat. It was
shielded only by the drooping brim of the limp
white hat and he presently turned it hither and
thither, looking in stunned amazement and a dep-
recatory, remonstrant, unconscious inquiry at the
neighbouring spectators among the crowded
benches. The flavour of his secret jest had
evaporated — he seemed to find naught to ridicule
now.

" Why don't they raise that curtain, I wonder,"
growled Frank Laniston. " It's as hot as Hades
in here, working this way. Bless my soul, won't
she accept an encore? "

For the curtain remained immovable. Lloyd,
startled by the unexpected endorsement of the at-
traction he had devised, that had hitherto fallen so
flat, gratified by the applause as if it were a per-
sonal commendation, flushed deeply red as he sat
near the orchestra and with smiling eyes waited too
with all the rest for the conventional rising of the
curtain and the complaisant repetition of the num-
ber. He had left nothing unforeseen in his instruc-
tions to the tyro. Clotilda had been fully informed

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of the nature and exigencies of an encore, and the
course proper for her to pursue as the recipient of
that great compliment. But, alack, the turn had
never received before a hand of applause. In dead
silence the rural crowd had heretofore watched the
scene and wondered futilely what was the point
when a simple country girl, in her old calico
" coat," jumped around under a peach tree, and
sang a verse of an old song, a thing, to be seen on
any roadside. Then they had silently filed out and
there was an end for the time. Now, however,
since there was applause from so experienced and
discerning a source, a revised estimate seemed in
order. Perhaps a new interpretation waited upon
a more aesthetic point of view. The applause was
hearty and general, and rose presently to an in-
sistent clamour.

Clotilda, having had no occasion to respond to
the plaudits of the public, had forgotten every
syllable of her instructions. Lloyd remained yet
some moments waiting, like the rest, eyeing the cur-
tain, in the immediate expectation of seeing it rise.
The musicians had their instruments in hand — at
the tinkle of the bell they would begin da capo.
But the curtain continued absolutely blank ; no sign
of the golden glow of the artificial light could be
discerned, naught but the ripples of the air, swiftly
running over it as the draught from the lowered'
canvas at the rear struck upon the fabric. Lloyd
began to look discomposed, then anxious, then as
the applause redoubled its demand he waited one

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uncertain moment longer, rose; advanced amongst
the orchestra, sprang upon the stage, pushed the
curtain aside and vanished behind its sphinx-like
blankness.

" I never did really believe that he was the man-
ager till this moment," said Lucia, a regretful ca-
dence in her voice.

" What did you think he was, a duke in dis-
guise? " chuckled Frank.

" Oh, yes, he is the manager," said Ruth glibly,
" and this is only the by-play of the real romance
staged here. He is in love with that pretty girl,
and was fascinated in training her."

Mr. Jardine had fended off the motley crowd
from contact with his fair charges as best he might
by seating the two young ladies together, with
Frank on one side and himself on the other. But
there was no protection from the occupants of the
seats just in front, and suddenly one of these, a
slovenly old wretch, in a dirty, whitey-grey coat and
flapping hat, turned and fixed an eager, intent, al-
most indignant gaze on Ruth's face as she spoke.
It was as if she had spoken a thought, a fear in his
own mind, and to Jardine's surprise he saw that the
face was young — young, but overgrown with the
stubble of a three-days' beard, a stiff, dark beard.
Wisps of short, dark hair overhung the forehead,
as if a forelock were pulled of set purpose half over
the eyes ; for the rest, the face was dirty, unwashed,
one might have thought stained in blotches — a re-
pellent face, with fine, bright brown eyes. They

The Windfall

turned eagerly to Lucia as, all unnoting his demon-
stration, she replied to Ruth's observation.

" I don't think she is so pretty," said Lucia
critically. "It is the artistic environment that
makes it all so fetching, don't you think, Mr.
Jardine?"

He caught but the one word in the uproar of
applause.

"Artistic — it is indeed! I wouldn't have be-
lieved it if I hadn't seen it. That scene has the
true poetic glamour; it is as classic as an eclogue of
Virgil."

He could hardly speak for the clamour which
overpowered the tinkle of the bell, the earliest
measures of the violins. As the curtain rose on the
golden glow came a sudden hush; the pizzicato of
the violins fell as trippingly as fairy feet on the
silence; then the sound of singing broke forth in
the distance and the beautiful dancing figure
appeared. With familiarity one could note new
effects, that, however, brought no disparagement.
The opal cloud in the scenery had turned to purple,
while the saffron cloud had held its glow. Once
there was a sudden mutter of thunder and a swift
veining of white glister was revealed amidst the
hyacinthine tones.

As before, the scene was all too short, the beauti-
ful dancing figure but a glimpse. The curtain
came down in a clamour of applause; as this con-
tinued it rose after a short space. Clotilda had
been schooled anew, and she was a quick study.

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Nothing could have seemed more perfect, more
practised than her manner of smiling, grateful rec-
ognition as she came forward to the footlights.
She had removed the basket of grapes from her
head, but supported it in the round of her arm, half
poised against her hip; the other hand lightly
touched the masses of grapes held in the folds of
her yellow dress, but it was obvious that their ar-
tistic draping had been made hard and fast against
accident. She bowed with drooping eyelashes, and
once more, lower still, she bowed, all rustic grace
and diffidence, and then the curtain came down with
a rush and the turn was triumphantly at an end.

" Couldn't Lucia photograph her, Mr. Jar-
dine? " cried Ruth. " Oh, how I'd love to have
her in my collection."

He hesitated coldly for one moment; then as
if suddenly bethinking himself, eagerly assented.

" Doubtless — doubtless; you will want her in
costume. I must speak to the manager at

once."

As he eagerly breasted the crowd, seeking to
get in as the spectators streamed out, the two young
ladies, amazed by his willing co-operation, which
they had by no means expected, stood and gazed
quizzically at each other.

"A change of heart? " Lucia asked.

" Or a softening of the brain, perhaps," Ruth
responded. Then they both turned to note his
progress and saw him already in courteous con-
ference with the manager. In fact Jardine had

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gladly embraced the opportunity to give the im-
pression to this very handsome man of low degree
that the highly placed and aristocratic Miss Lucia
Laniston was out for snap-shots in general, and
was adding to her collection from features of the
town, the mountains, the fair, whatever presented
itself as of passing interest. This was an infer-
ence more creditable and becoming than the possi-
bility that she was greatly struck by the manly
beauty of Lloyd's countenance and desired to
remember it, to have the likeness to refresh her
recollection, and thus caught the exceptional value
of his pose at the moment. Jardine did not tell,
and he did not think it necessary to tell, that
Lloyd's face was the only one she had cared to
portray, and that the camera had not been placed
in position before and the slide drawn since she
had been in town. He thought this an oblitera-
tion of the dangerous flattery if the man had been
complacent and pleased by the discovery the click
of the shutter had afforded him, and a placation
of the offence, had he taken umbrage, by the
apology suggested in the fact that he was only one
of the many victims of the raging camera. He was
surprised by the grave and gentlemanly address of
the showman. Lloyd might have seemed indeed
some man of high grade, were it not for his ac-
cent. He would be very happy to oblige, as far
as he had any voice in the matter, but he must
first ask the " lydy." Most of the attractions of
the show were photographed and their portraits

194

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were on sale, but this lydy had very recently joined
the company, playing only a temporary engage-
ment, in fact, and she had not been photographed
at all. Having also his reservations, he did not
add that it had not been thought worth while, the
reality itself being so incapable of sustaining
interest.

Jardine, having carried his point, became afraid
that he was playing it a little too fine, as the two
young ladies approached and he found himself
compelled to say, "This is the manager, Mr.
Lloyd, ladies, and he is in hopes he may be able
to secure the photograph you desire."

Mr. Lloyd raised his hat in a manner to which
no exceptions could have been taken by the most
exacting critic, and replying, " I shall be with you
again in a moment," stepped upon the stage and
disappeared.

Mr. Jardine looked harassed; he took out his
handkerchief and passed it over his brow. It had
been only one afternoon of chaperonage, but he
had all the indicia of brain fag. The two young
ladies, silent, glanced about at the queer, unaccus-
tomed place; to his jaundiced mind they were
measuring its opportunities to furnish them oc-
casion for more mischief. Suddenly beside him
the curtain drew up and 'the beautiful mountain
girl stood posed exactly as she had appeared before
the audience.

She was flattered that her picture was to be
taken — now and again her lips parted over her

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beautiful teeth in a foolish little grin that annulled
every scintilla of poesy in her presence.

" I have tried this sort of thing a bit, myself,
and I don't think the perspective will answer unless
the lydies are on a level. There is such a — a —
mixed crowd outside — will the lydy step on the
stage? " suggested Lloyd.

If for no other reason than the dismay on Jar-
dine's high-featured, disdainful face, Lucia signi-
fied her acquiescence, and accepting the assistance
of the manager's proffered outstretched hand she
sprang lightly on the boards. Lloyd's quick in-
tuition interpreted the expression on their several
faces, for Jardine had instantly joined her and
she felt that she must mask her thoughts if she
would not have them read when Lloyd said, evi-
dently in response to the protest in Mr. Jardine's
countenance — " This is quite retired, not at all
public now." Then glancing at the three or four
people who were yet loitering and staring at the
figures on the stage, he called out loudly — " This
is no performance. Keep out of here ! "

The wondering rustics slowly vanished ; only one
lingered and as Lloyd's gaze fell upon him he
recognised the figure clad in a whitey-gray garb
which had so persistently dogged his steps. His
voice took on an authoritative cadence.

" Clear out. This is no performance. Clear
out, I say ! "

The figure turned like a dog that would fain
fly at the throat, yet slinks in fear.

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" I ain't carin' what you say," the intruder blus-
tered. Then he slowly slouched out, muttering
to himself, with the flapping brim of his hat well
pulled down over his bright young eyes.

" You will make a lovely picture in that charm-
ing dress," Lucia said blandly, as Lloyd stepped
here and there, pulling at the curtain to get a better
light.

" It's all wore an' tore," Clotilda said depre-
catingly. She did not doubt the admiration of the
men, but she was all abashed and awkward in this
presence of dainty feminine elegance. She scanned
the two openly, as if comparing their traits. Then
she fixed her eyes sedulously on Lucia. Her face
was so out of drawing with this heavy, dully pon-
dering, loutish expression, so incongruous with the
poetic charm she had wrought, that Miss Laniston
suggested :

" Sing — sing a line or two of that pretty song- —
sing, and dance a few steps."

The girl lifted her docile head, sprang lightly
into the air, her fresh young voice floated out and
suddenly the camera clicked.

" That is all, and when I get the pictures out I
will come and see you and bring some of them to
you. This gentleman tells me you live near by
in the mountains. Where is your home?"

" He knows. He'll kem an' guide you,"
Clotilda easily promised for him.

Lucia turned to Lloyd, with her most en-
trancing smile. " Thanks, for past and future

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favours," she said, realising the disastrous storm
the unexpected turn of events had roused in Mr.
Jardine's conventional soul.

Lloyd bowed in gravest acknowledgment, and
as she stepped down from the stage she rcmaked:

" My first and last appearance on the boards."

" You graced them," said Ruth airily.

But the two men, heavily silent, said nothing.

Lloyd ceremoniously saw them to the door, as
if he had been entertaining them in the character
of host, and as they departed he lifted his hat with
a dignity all at variance with the sudden humorous
cry of the spieler close at hand — " He eats 'em —
he eats 'em alive ! "

Lucia shrugged her disdainful shoulders.

" What an experience ! What a place ! The
incongruities are amazing. I feel as if I were in
a fevered dream, or a grotesque fairy-tale."

" You'll ruin those films if you don't look out
for that camera," Ruth warned her, but she made
no reply and swung the camera as carelessly as
before.

198

CHAPTER X

MR JARDINE, seating himself on the
piazza of the hotel, which overlooked
the motley throngs of the square with
the salient concomitants of the mushroom spread
of the tents, the tawdry ornaments of the vendors'
stands, the tall mast of the high diver, the periph-
ery of the gigantic Ferris Wheel with its seats
filled with rustics swaying in the slow revolution
through the afternoon glow, the business houses of
the little town that bounded the space on each
side, their decorous, sober, orderly appearance, so
alien to the flurry and carnival folly of the streets,
had sufficient need of the mild stimulant of his
cigar to restore the tone of his nerves and allay
the irritation that harassed his mental processes.
He was glad of the silence, for so he accounted
the freedom from talk whether of accost or reply,
despite the varied clamours of raucous voices, the
wailing of infants, the whinnying of impatient
horses, eager for the homeward journey, and mind-
ful of supper, as the waggon teams stood hitched
in rows to the courthouse fence, the braying of the
band, the stentorian cries of the spielers, all the un-
wearied activities of the lungs of the mountebanks.
He was glad to be no longer in the seat of the
scornful, to be continually objecting, deriding,

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frowning down the features of the little show; if
it was the fad of the young ladies to entertain their
idleness with such rubbish, surely for the nonce
he might ignore its vapidities, its pitiful poverty-
stricken shifts, its sedulous catering to the low
capacities of the common rustic crowd. There
was much distasteful, even disgusting to a fas-
tidious sense in its exhibitions, but there was noth-
ing absolutely coarse, and not the most remote
suggestion of anything vile. It was a clean show,
as its handbills insistently proclaimed. It need
not have so lacerated his sensibilities, he felt, as
the fragrant nicotian solace began its soothing
effect. To be sure it was a sacrifice, a poignant
trial to his hyper-elegant standards to be with
Lucia Laniston amid scenes so unworthy. He
would fain meet her, as heretofore, on a plane more
in accord with the character of both, among cir-
cumstances that elicited those charms of intellect
and culture that had won his admiration and re-
spect as her more obvious grace and beauty had
captured his heart. In his eyes she united many
fascinations, the more remarkable because of her
youth. Her solid, unimpassioned judgment, her
cultivated taste, her very respectable scholastic ac-
quirements, gauged from even a high educa-
tional point of view, of which he had seen many
evidences, rendered it manifestly impossible that
she should enjoy the exhibition in any serious
sense. It merely furnished a surface for that
exuberant buoyancy and those fantastic traits

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which her aunt called " wildness," and which he
supposed were the inseparable concomitants of
such abounding youth and vitality and joyous
spirits. She was alert and energetic, and full of
life and mirth, and it was not the fashion of the
day, as of yore, to set such a damsel down to
sew her sampler by the fire till such time, soon
or late, as her cavalier came to claim his domestic
paragon. Things were different now. Wider
courses of study, much travel, athletic recreations,
great liberty of thought and action had resulted
in a wider outlook for girls — and, suddenly, he
doubted if it made them happier from any point
of view. He was remembering the dull depres-
sion, the listless disillusionment in Lucia Lanis-
ton's face as but now they had walked to the
hotel together, and the ladies had sought their
rooms for some freshening of attire before start-
ing on the afternoon drive back to New Helvetia.
The horses were swift and fresh, and the distance
was thus minimised; there was a new moon to en-
liven the dusk, the roads were very good; the
driver, a stalwart young fellow, himself, and Frank
Laniston, three men, quietly carrying arms in con-
formity with the privilege accorded travellers,
were ample escort for the ladies, even in these re-
mote wildernesses ; but Jardine was a prudent man
of a prompt habit. He drew out his watch, and
looked critically at the wane of the day evidenced
in the skies, bright though they still were, begin-
ning to hope that the usual feminine procrastina-

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tions might not so postpone the hour of departure
as to render the party unduly benighted.

Chances of casualties, a broken wheel, a horse
going lame, a mistaken direction in fording a river,
a cloud on the moon, the shattering of the carriage
lamps in a blow from a projecting bough, even the
unlikely possibility of highway robbers, should
not be invested with unnecessary jeopardy and
added danger. He was at such a disadvantage in
this respect as does not usually harass the guardian
of ladies. He was neither husband, father, nor
brother, to stand, timepiece in hand, and proclaim
the wasting hour, like an irate clock. He could
not order the luggage downstairs — packed or un-
packed. He could not threaten that he would
start on schedule time, regardless if all portable
property were left behind. Jardine was only a
friend, as yet, benign, complaisant, and in no posi-
tion to dictate. Yet he wondered, with a vexation
which tobacco was powerless to reach, what could
be detaining the ladies in their preparations for an
afternoon drive through an unpeopled wilderness.
If it was a question of toilette its effect was already
a foregone conclusion — Ruth had slain her thou-
sands, and Lucia her tens of thousands — uncon-
sciously he was adopting their own exaggerated
vein. He could not imagine that anything of con-
sequence hindered their readiness, — only the usual
feminine, dilatory aversion to be on time for any
vicissitude of life. He began to feel that he must
act, yet he shrank from encountering the laggards

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with admonitions and reproaches. He realised
that he had not commended himself by his stiff
imperviousness to the simple enjoyments of the
" lark " to-day, such as it was, and his disdainful
incapacity to enter into its spirit had not bettered
it. He was anxious to appear no more as unre-
sponsive monitor, full of warnings, and wise saws,
and stiff reproofs. Where was Francis Laniston?
Naught was to be disparaged by thrusting him into
the jaws of domestic displeasure. Let him make
the remonstrance, and bear its resilient blow as
behoved his position and relationship. Let the
dilatory ladies wreak their displeasure on the ur-
gent Frank! Animated by this inhuman resolu-
tion, Jardine sprang from his chair to go in search
of Frank. He was interrupted by the sudden issu-
ance of the clerk of the hotel, a young, plump,
blond man, wearing an immaculate white duck
suit, with short hair in a stiff straight roach above
his brow, no eyebrows — thus he dispensed with
frowns — a long, blunt nose, a twinkling blue-grey
eye, very small and very affable. His whole aspect
was not unducklike, and, as he remained all day
behind his desk, having no outside vocation to call
him from his post, he was very speckless, without
even the creases incident to a sitting posture, since
he stood at his desk, or perched on a high stool.
He might have been expected to creak with starch
as his brisk short steps brought him to the
encounter.

"Speak to you a moment, Mr. Jardine?" he
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The Windfall

said, pausing by a chair, and leaning with both
hands on its back in his stiff white garments.
Many men, however wasteful in general, have
some saving grace of frugality. Jennings, the
clerk, a most voluble man, was nevertheless spar-
ing in parts of speech, and economised pronouns
and conjunctions. This necessitated a reckless ex-
penditure in punctuation — commas, colons, periods,
and dashes, but, as his prelections were not des-
tined for type, he did not realise, perhaps, that
what he saved at the spile he lost at the bung.
" Considerable storm in the mountains. Thought
I ought to let you know. Heard you give orders
for the horses to be put to at once. See from
east window of office. Mountains have been
caught up in clouds — so to speak. I tried to tele-
phone to New Helvetia, in interest of your party.
— Hate to be alarmist — wanted to find out what
weather is doing there. No answer. Central says
wire is blown down. Intact as far as Crossroads.
Tried Mr. Tackett, the storekeeper there. He
says raining there heavily. Big blow in the woods
— falling timber — and lightning — thought I'd let
you know."

"Thank you, very much," said Jardine, still
standing with his watch in his hand contemplating,
not its dial, but these untoward complications.
" Can you afford us accommodations? I under-
stood this morning that the house was full."

' Thought of that — the ladies have had a room
all day — only one — very large, with alcove — two

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beds — double room. And you gentlemen — we
have thought of you — we will offer you little blue
parlour — best we can do "

'" And sleep tunefully on the piano, I suppose,"
Frank interpolated. He had just strolled up, evi-
dently already informed of the quandary, and stood
listening, his hands in his pockets.

The duck laughed with a short grating note.

" Folding bed — that handsome cabinet with the
Indian curiosities on the brackets — latest patent.
The divan is really a sofa-bed, too — you'll be
qualified to help us out and be hospitable, if any
more single men drop in on us," the clerk said
tauntingly.

" Now don't you bank on that. The little blue
parlour is my bower, and don't you forget it," said
Frank.

The ladies had not come prepared to stay the
night, but Mrs. Laniston remembered that in going
to New Helvetia in June she had left a steamer
trunk here, after her European voyage, filled with
heavier wear than would be needed before autumn.
According to the accommodating methods of the
hotel, it had been received and stored in the attic,
and now it was brought down in the nick of time,
to the delight of the young ladies, who hoped that it
might contain something that they might borrow,
in addition to the absolutely necessary parapher-
nalia for the night. As soon as Mrs. Laniston
showed some natural disposition to defend her
belongings from these unwarranted depredations,

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\The Windfall

they became " possessed," as she expressed it, to
see what she had in her trunk, and, having all the
desire in the world to maintain her ascendency
and her rights, she declared she would not turn
the key until they promised that they would ask
for nothing but the loan of a nightgown apiece.

When matters had reached this deadlock, she
seated herself in a cane rocking-chair, her bunch
of keys in her hand, and her eyes on the pansies
that papered the bedroom wall. Both the girls,
in the trim pleated skirts of their white linen suits,
and their sheer shirt waists, — the two jackets had
been folded and laid on one of the beds in the big,
cool, clean room, — seemed exceedingly capable of
rummaging exploits, and she compressed her lips
with resolution as from the corner of her eyes she
noted their movements, and their expectant gaze.

" Such fun, Aunt Dora, to try on something

new."

" And something blue," murmured Ruth.

" Say, Aunt Dora," said Lucia, sparkling with
incredible brilliancy and lustre of delighted antici-
pation, " do you suppose that little blue messa-
line waist of yours is in that trunk? I just live
to try that shade I I don't want to risk buying any-
thing in it till I can try it on. I believe it would
be becoming to me."

" More so to me," said Ruth. " Anything blue
suits my blond hair."

" Not that green cast — it throws green reflec-
tions on blond hair."

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The Windfall

" Girls, this is cruel," said Mrs. Laniston, " to
keep me cooped up in this close room, while there
is such a fresh breeze on the verandah, and "

" Mr. Jardine waiting to make love to you; I
mean to tell papa." Ruth saucily laughed.

" You needn't stay here a minute, Aunt Dora.
Just leave the keys, and go at once," said Lucia,
with the eye of a bandit.

" I am fairly afraid to leave the trunk," Mrs.
Laniston declared. " You are capable of opening
it with a poker."

Lucia glanced around at the utensil as if this
expedient had not occurred to her.

" Mr. Jardine must be waiting for you, girls,"
Mrs. Laniston admonished them.

" I know the reason you won't open the trunk
before us, Aunt Dora. Because you are going to
lend him and Frank some — some^ — petticoats ! for
the night — you know ! "

Mrs. Laniston tried to look shocked.

" Lucia, I am surprised," she said.

" Why, I am only talking to you, Aunt Dora.
I would not bring a blush to the antique cheek
of Mr. Jardine for the world," she gravely pro-
tested.

" Much cheek as he has got," Ruth gurgled.

" As for Frank, his brazen athletics have made
his cheek a permanent cardinal red, and he could
not blush if he would."

Mrs. Laniston broke into an unwilling laugh.

" You two will be the death of me ! "
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The Windfall

" But what will Frank and the other gentle-
man do? " queried Frank's sister.

" My dear, you mustn't inquire into such mat-
ters. Frank told me they would furnish them-
selves at a clothier's here, where they have ready-
made garments for sale.'*

" It may be indelicate," said Lucia, " but I
would rather picture them arrayed in ready-made
nightgowns, bought in the metropolis of Colbury,
than standing stiffly up on end, dressed in their
usual attire all night. It is more humane."

Mrs. Laniston burst out laughing.

" There ! " she suddenly exclaimed, rising and
starting to the door, throwing the bunch of keys
on the floor. " I beg and pray you to let my
things alone, and, if you rummage through them,
you do so without my consent, that's all."

Her last glance into the room was not reas-
suring. The lid of the precious trunk was al-
ready lifted, and the two girls on their knees before
it were diving into its contents, shouldering each
other in their eagerness, their countenances alight
with keen curiosity and greedy expectancy of
novelty.

Mrs. Laniston gave a sketch of their employ-
ment when she joined Jardine and Frank on the
verandah outside the door of the large parlour.
They had drawn forth a wicker rocking-chair for
her from that apartment, and here, quietly and
safely ensconced, she watched the evidences of

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The Windfall

storm to the east, as she swayed to and fro, with
devout thankfulness that they had escaped its fury.

" How lucky that we did not start half an hour
ago," she satd. " We should have been in the
thick of it"

" I hope you didn't say so to those girls," cried
Frank. " They will make it a reason to be behind
time for ever more — the dangers they escaped by
never being ready ! "

A grey curtain of cloud had fallen over the
familiar scene to the east. It was null, inexpres-
sive, motionless. It cut off the field of vision.
There was no trace of mountain forms, of inter-
venient valleys and coves. There might seem
naught beyond — some prairie country, this, whose
low horizon brought down the sky to a level with
the plain. Only now and then on the impalpable
nullity was a flicker of red fire; in irregular zig-
zag lines it pulsed, and once and again the thunders
of the remote tempest shook the sun-beams
here. The gay carnival crowds in the square
heeded the storm that burst elsewhere as little as
sunshine ever cares for shadow. The con-
trast reminded her, Mrs. Laniston said, of the
indifference of the happy in the world to the sad-
ness of others. Their storms are brewing in the
clouded future, to burst sometime, but all un-
prescient and unsympathising they sport like small
insects of the stinging varieties — gnats, and gad-
flies, and wasps — in the glamour of to-day. " I

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The Windfall

think happiness, prosperity, give a sense of su-
periority. No doubt sorrow and adversity dis-
cipline the heart and soul and temperament, and
form and strengthen the character; but any of us
would rather be inferior than perfected at such
a cost to comfort. I think the world is less and
less ambitious of realising in one's self high stand-
ards and spiritual elevation. People only care to
be thought fortunate and envied, now — not to be
noble, in spite of all that fate can do."

Mrs. Laniston loved to moralise after a fashion.
Much feminine club life had liberated a certain
facility of expression, and she was an ornament to
the rostrum, for she had a good voice, a low-
pitched contralto, and a very agreeable and distinct
enunciation and intonation, which were natural
endowments, but which sounded like the product
of training. She had taken no pains to become an
impressive speaker, but she rather liked the sense
of superiority the reputation fostered, and she
had fallen into the habit of analysing her impres-
sions, and setting them in order.

" Gee ! wouldn't I hate to have such a rum
lot of reflections as all that, just because New
Helvetia is getting it in the neck. My! did you
see that flash ! " said Frank.

" And wouldn't I hate to have such a * rum lot *
of expressions if I was entering my junior year
at college, and expected to compete for the medal
for oratory," his mother retorted.

Jardine laughed. " Slang i§ more and more in-

2IQ

The Windfall

corporated into the language every year," he
said.

" Yes," she assented, " and it is used by a class
of persons who were formerly far more exacting.
It seems to be considered to impart a sort of rude
strength to phraseology, and a shade of meaning
otherwise impracticable. It affects to be hearty,
and downright, and candid. Whereas it is noth-
ing but slip-shod, and out-at-elbows, and a slovenly
expression of down-at-heel ideas — sometimes lack
of ideas. I think there ought to be some reform,
some united action on the part of people who ap-
preciate the art of conversation, the fit phrasing
of thoughts of value."

" The Federation of Women's Clubs might get
on to it," Frank suggested.

His mother went on without noticing him.

" In fact, Mr. Jardine, all the standards are
down. Now, when I was young — it has not been
so very many years — it was the extreme of uncouth-
ness for a lady to swing her arms in walking. At
present they swing both arms, if you please, as if
these adjuncts were propellers, and to and fro they
work their progress thus along the street, instead
of walking naturally and gracefully. I thought
for a time that this was a peculiarity of college
towns, and of the athletic craze; but you see
everywhere the poor wretch, swinging all loose
from the shoulder. I have told my girls that I will
not tolerate this gaucherie — they try to do it from
perversity — but happily they can't remember it

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The Windfall

always. Then the young men are not more elegant.
Things, in the similitude of gentlemen, whistle
upon the streets ! "

" Conscience stricken ! " said Frank, with a
grimace.

" I don't mean that for you, dear," said his
mother. " I should have to feel much more fit
than I do to-day to tackle your long list of
enormities."

This was as an aside, an interlude. She had a
sudden perception of another phase of the subject,
and forthwith entered upon it.

" Then, this lack of standard is obvious in
matters of far more importance — it enters the
domestic circle. I suppose no one ever found
housekeeping very great fun, but in my young
days nobody ever protested. There may have been
shirks, but they hid their misdeeds. Now, there
is a clamour of open detestation of all domestic
concerns. It began with the caterer; in old times
one's own establishment was competent to furnish
the refreshments of every entertainment — to have
cakes baked or ices frozen out of one's own
house would be a confession of being beyond
one's depth, and of seeking to entertain more
elaborately and making more pretensions than one
was entitled to sustain. A household valued its
reputation for fine dinners, and elaborate refresh-
ments at dancing parties; people even had spe-
cialties that you saw nowhere else, and were some-
times grudging of receipts, and kept some choice

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The Windfall

concoctions a dead secret. To have additional
waiters hired for the occasion — unless indeed it
were a ball — was unheard of in houses of good
style. Then, when the caterer was fairly estab-
lished, the expense accounts came in and cut down
the menu "

" Till it got down to the delectable cup of tea
and the midget sandwich, with an appetising baby
ribbon round its turn-turn, " interpolated Frank.

" Be still, Francis. In old times every article
must be perfection — the heads of families would
be bowed in shame if aught were amiss with cook-
ing or service — but now it is all the caterer's affair,
even the decorations — sometimes actually the
china."

Mr. Jardine was fully ten years Mrs. Laniston's
junior, but he was sufficiently retrospective, and his
experience sufficiently extensive in days gone by, to
make him interested in her animadversions on the
present, and her theory of the superiority of the
past. He was of a temperament older than his
age, and he sympathised rather with the stately
methods of yore than the less exacting fashions of
the present day. Thus he found it no hardship to
moralise on the signs of the times, with his cigar
graciously permitted, and his eyes on the far-away
storm, with an interlocutor intelligent enough to
evolve and present subjects of sufficient interest to
titillate his understanding, requiring no exertion on
his part, and loquacious enough to discuss them
with an ability which did not call for interference,

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The Windfall

or contradiction, or instruction from him. His
was a facile acquiescence, and Mrs. Laniston, ac-
customed to talk for time, while some factional
whips of one of her clubs awaited the appearance
of dilatory voters, before a momentous question
should be put to the arbitration of the majority,
had by no means exhausted the suggestions the out-
look presented to her discerning contemplation.

" Now here is another phase that appeals more
directly to you than to me, Mr. Jardine. I will
venture to say that in the last ten years, since
your college days in fact, there has supervened
a total change in the popular estimate of youth.
Formerly in society it was the young man with
the reputation for talent who was in the ascendant.
Merely rich men had to stand back. You must
have known intellectual young fellows who enjoyed
all the prestige of achievement, a positive value,
merely on the strength of their glowing promise
of development. A man was said to be talented
— this reputation lifted him into a prominence that
naught else could compass. People spoke of him
with respect. If a girl desired to marry a man
of that sort, yet in college, or new to the bar, it
was considered a safe thing even if he were poor
— so sure he was to make his mark. Now-a-days
they live a life apart as students; a career is not
the focus of their regards. Their identity is com-
passed in their position as back-stop, or stop-
gap "

"Oh, hi!" interpolated Frank.
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The Windfall

" — Or whatever it may be called in their in-
sufferable jargon. A young man who goes to col-
lege to study, and who does it, is contemned as
a grind. Such a thing as taking exercise for health
merely in order to be able to study, to clear the
brain — like a horseback ride, or a long walk — is
antiquated. They exercise for the play — as if
their playing days were not over; for the com-
petition— the great children! My Frank there
would rather lead the sprinters in the track team
than win the medal for oratory "

Frank did not deny this.

" — And he would be more envied and thought
a better man than tire medalist."

" If I don't get some sprinting training this fall,
they'll shunt me off the track team," said Frank,
his face falling with a sudden anxious monition.

" I perceive the same trait in the professions,
Mr. Jardine. No longer do you see a politician
pointed out as a close and powerful debater, or a
lawyer as a cogent reasoner. Why, they used to
make all manner of discriminations in a man's
mental endowments. One was no lawyer, but a
popular speaker — could carry a jury with him
against both law and fact; another had no elo-
quence, nor appreciation of principles, but was
grounded in case learning and precedent; another
had a splendid choice of words, and a magnetic
presence, and a gift of oratory — and the house
would be crowded whenever he spoke. Now, they
tell me a judge would virtually order such an

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The Windfall

orator to sit down — ask him to come to the point,
or to be brief. They consider all this too flam-
boyant— spread-eagleism."

" There does seem a great change in recent
years," said Jardine, ceasing his thoughtful puffing
of his cigar, taking it out of his mouth and looking
critically at its ash; "there are now no world-
famous orators, very few politicians of real parts,
rarely indeed a statesman; the notable lawyers
are mostly old men of other days, of other tra-
ditions."

" And yet," said Mrs. Laniston, admirably ca-
pable of presenting the antithesis, " though im-
agination, aestheticism, hero-worship, ambition, all
the aspirations are dead, this is pre-eminently the
age of the fake and the blatherskite. People are
capable of credulity, but not of credence. They
are superstitious, but they have no faith. The
' isms ' of any fantastic sort will flourish, and the
churches are empty. The adoption of queer creeds,
of fake cures, of quack medicines, of dangerous
beautifiers, of impossible methods of learning, of
absurd processes of art and illustration, of fan-
tastic devices in edibles would abash the pretended
miracle workers of the Middle Ages. You can
scarcely buy a yard of genuine goods or a pound
of unadulterated food. People don't care for read-
ing as they once did; the art of conversation
is dead; nobody writes letters any more — your
friends send you souvenir postcards."

She fanned silently a few moments, her deli-
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The Windfall

cate, diamonded hand all the more dainty for the
simulation of a man's shirtsleeve and cuff, which
her plaited linen blouse affected, her eyes fixed on
the panorama of storm on the horizon while the
air here was so suave that the grey-streaked curls
on her brow did not stir with the motion of her
rocking. She suddenly resumed, interested in
another branch of the subject.

" Instead of the solid business of education, that
ought to be as solemn as prayer, the acquisition
of knowledge and the mental training for the
battle of life being held up as a great opportunity
and privilege for the young, it is made attractive,
alluring, easy; the fakers have found that royal
road to learning. I was dismayed when I had got
Lucia and Ruth beyond the geography, and spell-
ing, and arithmetic phase. I said to them, * Now,
if you don't want to learn anything further, you
can stay at home, but every day that you do stay
at home you shall sew — plain sewing — from morn-
ing till night.' Mr. Laniston said I ought to be
prosecuted for cruelty to animals. But they de-
veloped into quite hard students. They balked
just enough to get a bowing acquaintance with
needle and thimble. I had my way — I hate half
measures. They know what they do know, thor-
oughly. I can't tolerate incompetence. Unless a
thing is excellent in its way I can make no terms
with it, no allowance because of partiality or af-
fection. Now, Mr. Laniston loves music, and he
knows something about it. But he would sit and

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The Windfall

listen, with all the delight in life, to Ruth as she
bleated out of time and tune — the poor child has
no voice and no taste — her talent is for painting.
But I stopped that. I said, * Because her lispings
please you, she shan't make a show of herself/
And I stopped the lessons. Lucia is altogether dif-
ferent, a fine voice and a fine ear, but she can't
draw a straight line. So she had every musical
advantage, and I saw to it that she availed herself
of them. We had many a battle royal. ' The sons
of harmony came to cuffs,1 " she quoted, with a
laugh.

The accession of Mr. Jardine's interest was so
apparent when Mrs. Laniston spoke of Lucia that
she might have been tempted to continue the sub-
ject, for she made a point of deserving her rep-
utation as an agreeable woman, had not the
young lady in question suddenly issued from the
door of the hotel. Her cousin Ruth was following,
and, after a glance of inquiry, they smilingly took
their way along the verandah toward the door of
the ladies' parlour, where the party sat. The
eyes of both were intently fixed on Mrs. Laniston,
as if in anticipation of some effect, she scarcely
knew what. Suddenly she remembered the plun-
dered trunk, left defenceless at their mercy. Mr.
Jardine was devoutly grateful that they had seen
fit to remove their hats. He was priggish, even
old-fashioned in certain persuasions, and the sight
of a young lady at table, on the verandah, at
the piano, all day, in a hat, was at variance with

2*8

The Windfall

his taste. He had no idea that the hats had dis-
appeared because of an incongruity with adjuncts,
very lately assumed, of the white dresses. The
jacket of Lucia's gown had been laid aside, and
she now wore, in lieu of the plain white linen
blouse, one of fine white Irish lace. It had dainty
elbow sleeves (Mrs. Laniston still conserved a
plump arm). It had a belt, a stock collar, and at
each elbow a knot of delicately tinted ribbons of a
sea-shell pink, with rainbow stripes of faint blue,
brown, fawn, and a thread of red. Nothing could
have better accorded with the fair, fresh complex-
ion, the brown hair, in a luxuriant pompadour roll,
half crushed down on one side of the forehead, the
long, romantic, dark grey eyes, with their droop-
ing black lashes. He could not imagine why they
should be received in such cold silence by this
woman, with her evident motherly doting on
them both. Ruth was a bit the more showy; she
had confiscated a bolero of alternate lace inser-
tion and lilac ribbon, and she had found a lilac
ribbon for her blond hair. Mrs. Laniston had a
moment of wonder as to where that blue messaline
waist could be — certainly it had not been in that
trunk! Since she remained silent, Mr. Jardine's
manner was marked with an accession of humor-
ous cordiality as he rose and placed chairs for
the two.

" And what are the commands of your lady-
ship for this evening ?" he said, looking admir-
ingly at Lucia.

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The Windfall

" The Ferris Wheel, of course ! " she exclaimed,
with enthusiasm.

He could have fallen on the spot. He had
ignored the Ferris Wheel, and he had rested
supine in the fatuous conviction that she had
forgotten it. He was indescribably tired of the
street fair. Its inanities would have been insup-
portable to a man of his type in its best estate,
but hampered with the thousand sensitive points
that beset the escort of a lady in an amuse-
ment utterly beneath her pretensions and custom,
so remote from her comprehension that she was as
if on another planet, made heavy draughts on his
amiability, his endurance, even his savoir falre.
He hardly knew how to meet the unprecedented
problem it presented in the interest of his fair
charges. If he had had his way neither should
have shown her face in so motley a throng. But
he was exacting, a bit old-fashioned, and had not
even Mrs. Laniston's philosophy that would give
them a little line in matters of scant importance
that she might more easily curb them when circum-
stances required this. They would soon tire of
a harmless folly, but a monotony of dulness could
not be maintained. The prospect of further ex-
periences of the street fair strained the tension of
his equanimity almost to the breaking point. He
could scarcely endure the thought how nearly they
had escaped it all ; a little more — but for the cause-
less delay of their preparations — and the " hack,"
with its strong, fleet horses would have been at

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The Windfall

the door. To be sure it would have whirled them
into the midst of the mountain storm, but the
thought of wind and lightning, thunder and tor-
rents of rain was less abhorrent to him at that
moment than the recurrence of the trials of the
" show."

" Oh, yes, indeed ! " Ruth chimed in. " How
glad I am we couldn't get off — we would have
missed the ride on the Ferris Wheel, the cream
of the whole correspondence."

It was a relief when he discovered that they
had no intention of sallying forth for that enjoy-
ment until after the early supper of the little hos-
telry. There was a possibility that something
might occur in the interval — rain, wind, earth-
quake, he hardly cared, so keen, so nettling was
his irritation, and his desire to obstruct their fell
purpose, to keep them within doors, decorously
spending the evening in conversation with their
own exclusive party, or, so long as the little
blue parlour remained open for the general use
of the guests of the hotel, a quiet game of bridge,
in its quasi retirement. Mrs. Laniston and he
were often partners at this delectable pastime, and
the two girls delighted to combine their science,
luck, even chicanery, against them. The delay
restored his equanimity for the nonce, but his look
of annoyance had been so palpable that Mrs.
Laniston thought a remonstrance in order, when
she could speak aside to one of the young ladies.

"I wouldn't insist on the Ferris Wheel," she
2211

The Windfall

said to Lucia, as they walked through the ladies'
parlour; the verandah had become unpleasantly
crowded; the evening intermission had super-
vened at the fair; the wickets were closed; the
lamps were not yet lighted, and the sunset glow
was dulling into twilight. However removed from
the normal estate of mankind, the living skeleton
and the fat lady must eat, rest a bit, quench their
thirst, and sigh against the ridicule of Fate. It
was one of the unadvertised features of the show,
considered amusing or pathetic according to the in-
dividual temperament of the spectator, that the fat
lady, who, poor soul, had not her nerves under the
best control, burst into tears, ever and anon, and
her mountain of flesh shook and trembled with
sobs. She had an aesthetic mind, and was sensi-
tive to ridicule and the wonderment of the crowd,
and would fain have been beautiful and admired
rather than have filled her purse with gold. She
needed a respite to bathe her eyes and readjust
her tawdry finery, and hearken to the consolations
of her attendant. The boa constrictor, gorged, had
coiled up, and was lost in the torpor of digestion
and the recuperation of sleep. The spielers had
cast aside their horns ; one or two were in the drug
store, busy in swallowing the unpalatable vaseline
for their throats ; the Ferris Wheel was empty and
still for the nonce; the rural visitors of the more
prosperous class who could sustain the added ex-
pense of the hotel, detained also by the storm in
the mountains, were trooping up the steps and

222

The Windfall

sauntering along the verandah. Their ladies were
ensconced in numbers in the rocking chairs of the
large parlour. It had occurred to Jardine that
the garden walks were probably solitary and at-
tractive at this hour, and he suggested repairing
thither. As the party emerged into the fragrant
flowery paths, Mrs. Laniston continued her aside
to her niece.

" I fancy Mr. Jardine considers the Ferris
Wheel undignified."

" There is no question of dignity about it," said
Lucia coldly. "It is the simple amusement of a
simple little fair. If we see fit to break the monot-
ony of our detention at New Helvetia by visiting
a countryside fete, new to our experience, and so
far interesting, and by participating in such a de-
gree as pleases us, it is not an appropriate subject
for his criticism."

Mrs. Laniston was struck with the justice of this
observation. " But don't be too independent,"
she admonished the young lady, for Mr. Jardine
was a very good match from a worldly point of
view.

" I do not need his assistance to preserve my
dignity," she retorted. Thus she walked on with
her head held very high, and an added stateliness
of carriage that comported well with her fine height
and her slender, willowy figure.

The sunset glow was still reddening among the
dark, luxuriant shrubs. In the few locust trees
the wreaths of honeysuckle vines, that clambered up

223

The Windfall

to the lowest boughs and festooned the space from
one to another, were in the fall blooming — all
the world was pervaded with that sweet reminis-
cent fragrance of spring. There were late roses,
too, of an old-fashioned kind, pink and white, and
one, " the giant of battles," had dark-red velvet
petals, and an odour as of an exquisite distillation
of all the hoarded sweetness and sunshine of sum-
mer; it furnished a rich note of colour to Lucia's
brown hair, where it clung with its thorns and
leaves with as artless an effect as if it had been
blown thither by the breeze, coming more freshly
now from the dusky reaches of the east. The sky
was still perceptibly a faint blue, but here and
there the crystalline scintillation of a white star
trembled, and the red was fast dying out of the
west. As the party, two by two, paced slowly
along the pleached alleys, Jardine became aware of
a change in Lucia's manner toward him. In one
instant every other consideration was annulled.
With absent, reflective eyes he meditated for a
moment, fumbling mentally for the cause. Then,
with the quickened divination of a lover, he sur-
mised the betrayal of his disaffection, and Mrs.
Laniston's politic admonition. He did not realise
that she prudently considered his eligibility, but
only that she feared that it might not prove agree-
able to go about pleasuring in a humble way
with an escort who openly scorned the simple di-
version. Despite Mrs. Laniston's bland gracious-
ness, he was indignant that she should have inter-

224

The Windfall

fered. His fastidiousness had fallen from him
as if he had never entertained so finicky a disdain,
as it seemed to him now. Rather than displease
Lucia, than incur her resentment, he would have
taken a turn on Ixion's wheel — the safe and health-
ful revolution of the monster circumference
glimpsed over the hotel roof was, indeed, a minute
sacrifice to afford her the girlish fun, the simple
pleasure she found, like a child, in simple things.
It was her unspoiled taste, he now said to himself,
her fund of good humour, her indulgent, uncritical
attitude toward the humble folk, that could for-
bear ridicule, and share their pleasure in little
things — all added a grace to her metropolitan ex-
perience, her travel, her culture; she saw good
in everything, because she saw the reflection of her
own warm heart, and her own pure mind.

Jardine was not unskilled in casuistry. It would
have been his instinct to cast himself on his knees
at her feet, and beg her forgiveness, if so much
as the glance of his eye had offended her, but he
knew that confession fixes the fault in mind, and
a fault that is condoned is not so obliterated as
one that is, in effect, denied. There are some
affronts that will not be expunged by pardon. To
be tired of her amusement, to question her dignity,
to repine at escorting her wherever she might list
to go, to scorn the subject that interested her — he
would not throw himself on her generosity with
this score against him. He would annul, disavow,
disprove the impression. He suddenly turned, as

223

The Windfall

he walked slowly along with Mrs. Laniston, and,
standing in the path, impeding the progress of the
two young ladies, he looked straight at Lucia with
warning eyes.

" Now, I don't want to say anything disagree-
able," he cast down his glance at the dial of his
watch which he held in his hand, " but that wind
from the east is freshening very considerably. It
may bring rain, and you two may risk your ride
in the Ferris Wheel if you postpone any prepara-
tions you may have to make till after supper."

He was quick enough where his interests were
concerned. He caught a swift upbraiding glance
that flashed from Lucia's eyes to those of Mrs.
Laniston, who looked embarrassed.

" Why, you are not complimentary," cried Ruth.
" Don't you see we are already bedizened to the
best of our ability."

" Won't you need your hats? "

Having worn them when they were so little ap-
propriate, surely, he thought, they would not sally
forth without them to ride in that queer, uplifted
procession of passengers in the Ferris Wheel, as
if they had dressed for the occasion.

" No, indeed, we can't wear them," cried Ruth.
" They are not suited for lace ; we are wearing
lace, and they are embroidered."

She looked at her mother with such arch au-
dacity that Mrs. Laniston could scarcely refrain
from giving her a box on the ear.

" I was in hopes they had forgotten that miser-
226

\The Windfall

able Ferris Wheel/' said Mrs. Laniston, turning
toward Jardine.

"Oh, why?" he exclaimed disingenuously.
" Let them exhaust the attractions of the fair."

" Well, since you will kindly look after them,"
Mrs. Laniston's craft matched his own, " I have
no inclination, myself, for the * wild wheel, that
lowers the proud.' '

"Oh, that is Fortune's wheel; this is Ferris's
wheel — altogether a different make ; warranted no
vicissitudes," cried Lucia, all her gay self again,
and Jardine drew a breath of relief, for he felt
that he had made a very narrow escape of encoun-
tering her resentment.

Perhaps he doubted that the Ferris Wheel was
exempt from the vicissitudes of the wheel of for-
tune, for, shortly after the conclusion of supper,
he hurried them out upon the verandah, saying that
the wind was rising and he would not risk them on
the machine if its force should increase.

227

CHAPTER XI

CLOTILDA PINNOTT had not been very
definitely sensitive to the dull disfavour
with which the public had received hith-
erto her song-and-dance. In her own mind she
accorded it scarcely more appreciation. She per-
ceived, of course, that the other artists enjoyed a
boisterous enthusiasm of applause, the snake eater,
the winged lady, the high diver, and their con-
freres, but their meed of praise seemed but just,
since the merits of their respective turns were so
great in her primitive estimation. Singing and
dancing in her rustic garb were but everyday mat-
ters, and she sustained no great mortification that
her turn should be regarded with scant interest.
She had not lost her relish for the performance,
however; the praise that Lloyd accorded it was
sweet in her ears, though she secretly thought him
a fool to care for such folly. It brought him near
to her the only moments in the day when he had
been accessible. And this had been both a surprise
and a grief; she could only see him at a distance,
coming and going, absorbed with a thousand anx-
ious details, she knew not what, nor wherefore;
she had fancied that at the street fair he would
be continually at her side, for the love of the

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The Windfall

beauty of that face and form he extolled so
enthusiastically, that joy in the endowment of
voice and motion he had found so poetic. Only
a few moments before the turn did he appear,
stepping lightly on the stage behind the drawn
curtain, his hat on the back of his head, his face,
of which she dimly appreciated the beauty of con-
tour and chiselling, hot and moist, flushed and a
bit anxious; giving a word of direction here and
there to the " supes," charged with the manage-
ment of the simple scene ; critically surveying her as
she stood ready for the rising of the curtain. He al-
ways spoke gently to her ; she vaguely realised that
he was sharply disappointed by the public recep-
tion of the attraction, and that he sympathised
with her in the downfall of her presumable hopes.
She cared for naught else, when his eyes kindled
as he surveyed her in the rising glow of the
lime light.

"You're a peach I" he would exclaim, "and
don't you forget it! The fools out there don't
know their heads from a hole in the ground ! "

The joy of his approbation surged through her
whole being as she looked shyly at him while he
stood at gaze, his hands in his pockets, and his
hat on the back of his head. Her cheeks blazed
under the rouge, laid on for the broad effects of
the lime light; her eyes shone with a radiance
that embellished and vitalised her youthful beauty;
she trembled from head to foot in a quiver of
humble adoration, of gratified vanity, of the ec-

229

\The Windfall

stasy of loving and believing herself beloved. Once
he noticed her agitation.

" I thought you were going to pull through with-
out a touch of stage fright," he said casually.
" Don't think of the house — soon over."

" Regular buck ager," Tom Pinnott remarked.
One or another, sometimes several of the Pinnott
men made a point of being present at the perform-
ance, and there were persons at the street fair
unsophisticated enough to believe that it was the
discovery of the Thespian genius in their house-
hold, and their pride and solicitude in her achieve-
ments, that had brought the Pinnott family as a
unit down from their mountain fastnesses to attend
the fair. But these credulous wights hailed from
the furthest coves, and had never indeed heard
that whisky could be procured by any means save
by placing in a designated hollow tree a jug, with
a half dollar mortised into a corn-cob stopper, and
after an interval returning to find the money ab-
sorbed and the jug gurgling with tipsy delight
That the ardent could be found in a store or a sa-
loon, or dispensed at a lunch stand was an idea
that, unassisted, could never have entered their
minds.

" Fust time," continued Tom Pinnott viva-
ciously, " I ever tuk sight at a buck running on a
deer path, by a stand, my finger shuk so on the
trigger, an* my aim war so contrarious that the
bullet glanced out to the middle of the ruver, an'
the beastis war humpin' hisself along so fast that

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The Windfall

he beat it thar, an* it tuk him right ahint the ear,
and killed him. Left ear, 'twar."

" Skiddoo ! " said Lloyd, laughing slightly at
this veracious chronicle. " Clear the stage! The
public is too well used to liars to want to hear you.
Now, Heart's Delight! listen for the orchestra,
and mind you go on at the third beat of the fourth
measure, or you'll get thrown out. Count!
Count!"

On this immemorial day, when in the storm of
applause that thundered upon her disappearance
and clamoured for her return, she stood in the lit-
tle nook that served as wings, stunned, stolidly
surprised, overwhelmed, forgetful of all she had
been taught to observe for this contingency, she
did not shiver, nor tremble, nor sob half hysteric-
ally, till he found her there.

"What did I tell you?" he exclaimed, elated,
full of pride in the success of the unique attraction
he had devised. But she apprehended a reproach.

'"I furgot — I furgot! An', oh, I'd ruther die

than spite you so ! Lis'n — lis'n " as the gusts

of applause came with a roar. " They sound like
painters an' wolves of a stormy night in the woods."

" I told you they'd catch on ! I told you how
'twould be. Now look out. The third beat of
the fourth bar — count — count — now go'n ! "

When, still recalled, and she was to go on for
her simple bow of thanks, she cared naught for the
audience; she saw only him, the man who had
found her fair and gifted, had opened vistas of un-

231

\The Windfall

dreamed-of splendours, and had brought an undis-
covered world to her feet; she saw not the world,
only him, and the pleasure In his eyes, and the
pride and success to which she had ministered.

It was indeed a strange transition for the moun-
tain girl, whose vicissitudes had been hitherto the
incidents of the wood pile and the cow pen. Per-
haps only the physical freshness and vigour ap-
purtenant to a life so stagnantly calm enabled her
to sustain now the strenuous rush of sudden excite-
ment. She felt more sensibly the dull reaction
when all was at an end for the day. Lloyd had
quickly left the tent when the experiment in pho-
tography was concluded, and the party from New
Helvetia had returned to the hotel. Clotilda,
looking after him with a keen jealous pang, was
surprised and somehow consoled to perceive that
he had not followed them thither. A check on the
inrush of pride and gratification in her heart had
ensued on the appearance of the two young ladies
with the camera; but he had indifferently gone his
way, and they had retraced their footsteps. Grad-
ually as she slowly strolled along the road lead-,
ing out of town and toward the encampment of
the family, these two fluttering, flouncing white
butterflies were less insistently in her mind than the
details of her own great triumph, so tardily, so
hardly won. u Heart's Delight! " — he had never
before called her this and it seemed so apt, so dear
a phrase; that it was slang, and absolutely with-
out meaning, never occurred to her for a minute.

232

The Windfall

She felt a great glow of satisfaction. How she
had justified his faith in her — his admiration of
her talents, her beauty and grace. The echo of the
applause — no longer suggestive of the howling of
wolves — sounded anew in sweetest flattery through
the spaces of memory. Those elegant strangers,
the sojourners of New Helvetia Springs, were as
naught before the crowd in comparison with her,
the central figure, dancing to dulcet music on the
stage, all illumined with a burnished golden glow.
Her lips curled as she remembered the sudden
pang of jealous prescience she had experienced —
so fair they were, so daintily bedight, holding
themselves with such delicate hauteur and distance,
embodying a superiority which she could not
imagine and only vaguely felt. But how should
she fear a contrast with aught? She remembered
his descriptive phrases, not one of which she un-
derstood, but they were words of poesy and music
on his lips, applied in enthusiastic admiration of
her. An oread she was now, fresh from unim-
agined heights; and now a dryad, escaped from a
tree; and once more the most ethereal bacchante
that ever wreathed a vine. She conned them again
and again as she strolled on. Sometimes she lifted
shining, happy eyes to the river, red with the sun-
set, and here and there white with foam where a
half-submerged boulder or a ledge of rock broke
the currents into silver. Sunset lingered along the
mountain tops and she hardly needed to mend her
pace to be sure to reach the encampment before

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The Windfall

dark. Nevertheless, she looked sharply about her
now and then, with vague apprehension. She met
few wayfarers, now making their way into town;
most of the inebriates, prominent last evening at
the street fair, were sobered by this time, and the
effects of strong liquor would not again be appar-
ent until later. There was an interregnum in the
sway of the Bacchus of the " moonshine. " She
could not formulate the uneasiness that possessed
her, and once again she resolutely turned her mind
to the recollection of her triumph, the manager's de-
light, the poetic justice that had so amply overtaken
the cavillers who had derided and belittled the
stunt. And still — suddenly she turned and looked
behind her. It was an instinct, nothing more ; the
vigilance of an unnamed, causeless fear. The long
red clay road stretched out here straight by the
riverside for nearly a quarter of a mile. Silent,
still it was, overhung on either hand by the heavily
foliaged boughs of great forest trees. A waggon
that had passed her a moment since was yet creak-
ing its lumbering course toward the town, and the
odour of tar on the hubs was discernible on the
soft air. Nearer was the solitary figure of a pedes-
trian, an old man, to judge by the thick stick with
which he supported his steps. At the distance she
only noted the long grey coat and a limp broad-
brimmed white hat. Turning, reassured, she
walked on, conscious of the suave air, redolent of
the scent of the forest, the freshness of the river
and the pungency of the mint and water-side weeds ;

234

The Windfall

a bird — it was a thrush — was singing in the droop-
ing boughs of a great beech; a star was whitely
scintillating in the blue sky, seen in the space lim-
ited by the tops of the rows of tall trees on either
side of the avenue. Suddenly a step sounded just
behind her and a hand fell on her arm.

The scream on her lips was framed only in dumb
show; her voice was paralysed by sudden terror.
It was hardly annulled when her wondering gaze
recognised the face — the young eyes under the
flapping brim of the old white wool hat; the alert,
trig, young mountaineer in the semblance of a
slovenly, unkempt, hirpling- old vagrant. There
was something very sinister in the metamorphosis,
and it may be doubted if ever heretofore she had
heard of a man in disguise, still less found occa-
sion to discern the traits of the fraud. She gazed
with a fascinated horror at him, her cheeks
blanched, her white lips still trembling, her eyes
dilated and wildly shifting.

" I tole ye ez how I'd see you uns at the Fair,
Puddin' Pie," Eugene Binley said, essaying a
smile, but it was rather a grimace, for his mood
was rancorous. He was ill at ease, too, agitated,
suspicious, ever and anon looking over his shoul-
der, as if he feared an unheralded approach.

" But ye said / wouldn't see you u^.s," she
gasped, finding it still difficult to breathe. " And,'1
she spoke slowly and significantly, " I wisht I
hadn't — I wisht I hadn't."

The solemnity of her voice evidently increased
235

The Windfall

his discomposure. But he laughed in a husky,
raucous undertone — a sarcastic, unpleasant laugh.

" Ye'd feel freer to go flyin' round with a
strange man, ye never heard tell on, ef ye 'lowed
thar warn't an eye spyin' on ye."

She flushed indignantly. " I ain't been flyin'
roun' with no men. An' I'll take Tom ter witness
ter it," she said defiantly. Five brothers are a
small standing army, if occasion should require.
She was ashamed of the threat, and even more
ashamed of him, as she noted its salutary effect.
There was a distinct change of policy in his tone;
he would avoid recourse to disparaging insinua-
tion.

" Wa-al, what hev ye been doin' ? " he de-
manded, and quickly again glanced around.

" Dancin' an' singin' — what I kem fur," she re-
plied sullenly.

" And, oh, Lord, what a fool ye let them show-
men make o' you uns," he groaned. " I wuz ter
the tent an' seen ye — an' my sakes! I blushed ter
the soles o' my boots fur ye ! "

Her face flushed. " Let go my arm," she said
in parenthesis.

He released his hold and stood in his old man
attitude, leaning on his stick and looking at her
with those dismaying young eyes that had a
strangely daunting effect in their incongruity, like
some frightful thing in a dream, trivial and all
devoid of terror to the waking sense.

" If you uns hed been ter the tent terday," she
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The Windfall

continued, " ye mought hev saved some o' them
blushes fur yer own misdoin's — ye need 'em." And
she tossed her head with a bitter smile.

"Gosh, gal — warn't I thar! I sot right in
front o' them town gals an' men from New Helve-
shy an' hearn 'em plottin' an' plannin' ter make a
puffeck laughin' stock o' you uns, by clappin' an'
stampin' an' makin' a c'mmotion, ez ef ye war doin'
wonders. My cracky, Clotildy, what ails ye not
ter sense that thar couldn't be sech a power o' dif-
f'unce 'twixt terday an' yistiddy. Ain't the turn,
as ye calls it, the same? "

Her satisfaction suddenly wilted. The logic
of his proposition appealed to her solid sense. It
was indeed a sudden, causeless, and most radical
change. Her heart sank; her nerves, strong, nor-
mal, unstrained as they were, vibrated under this
heavy stress ; the tears welled up suddenly into her
beautiful eyes, a moment ago so happy and lucently
clear. Was the ovation indeed a burlesque, a
scheme to try her foolish capacity for vainglory
to the utmost ; she remembered with a keen pain at
the heart a certain light tinge of satire in the tone
and manner of the young lady they called Ruth.

Then she remembered Lloyd, and his satisfac-
tion.

" Wa-al — ef they all wuz ter make game o' hit,
an' me, till they draps dead, every one, I'd think
'twar smart an' fine an' a good turn, kase that thar
showman tole me so, an' I b'lieve him, every
word."

237

The Windfall

He looked at her intently for a moment, as if
he was minded to wring her neck, and canvassed
within himself how to most effectively lay hold.
Then he flung back his head with his mouth open
in the dumb show of laughing extravagantly, the
youthful demonstration seeming a great lapse from
the personality of the old man, causing her to step
back with a gesture of repellent distrust. She rec-
ognised him perfectly, yet she was constrained to
look at him as at something uncouth, uncanny,
strange.

" Wa-al, that's one o' the dernedest enjyments
the town air gittin' out'n the street fair — the way
that man makes you uns puffawm, 'lowin' ye air
doin' so fine, an' till terday they didn't hev the
heart ter jine in makin' game o* you uns."

Again that stricken look on her face — the facts
so bore out the semblance of the interpretation his
malignity had devised. And of herself she had
no art to judge. It seemed indeed to her a slight
thing to so arouse enthusiasm, ardour — the humble
sporting beneath the orchard tree. But even
against her own conviction she could not doubt
Lloyd.

" He hev gin his word on it, an' it air a true
word. An' I b'lieve him."

Binley was raging inwardly, but he controlled
the surging tempest for a time. He could hardly
have mastered his emotions in a good cause, but
enmity prevailed mightily within him. And he

238

The Windfall

loved the girl in his way, and jealousy consumed
him like a fire.

" When a gal wants ter be fooled, it's powerful
easy ter make a lie seem like the truth," he moral-
ised. "Look hyar, Clotildy; every woman that
man hires, but you uns, air dressed up finer than a
fiddle, the flying lady, an* the fat lady, an' all.
But ye dances in yer shabby old every-day clothes !
Lord, child, they talked all over town an' the cove
bout'n it."

Again the cogent reasoning, the recurrent shock
to her faith ! And this she knew was the fact, for
Lloyd himself had come to the camp and detailed
the gossip; had expressed the doubt he had, lest
his ardour for the fitness of the rustic turn had
rendered her liable to criticism.

Still she believed in Lloyd against the confirma-
tion of her own knowledge. " I know that man
ain't a liar," she averred. " He's good an' he's
true. He wouldn't fool a — a — frawg! He hev
gin his word, an' I b'lieves him. Ef 'tain't a good
stunt it's kase he dunno what a good stunt air."

There was a momentary silence of tremendous
import to him. Both felt that the forces of the
crisis were accumulated to an outburst

" Look-a-hyar, Clotildy," he said in a low, tense
voice, " you uns hev done fell in love with that
thar showman." He brought out the asseveration
with the force of an accusation.

It was not maidenly, and she blushed for the
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The Windfall

scandalous candour which she felt an admission
involved, but she had contended and refuted and
denied till the unwonted mental exertion had taxed
her endurance — she was glad to be rid of sophisms
— to stand on plain fact.

" Yes, I be in love with him, ef that's what you
want to know," she said.

" But ye air promised ter me 1 "

" That war afore I seen him," she declared.

" An' ye'll keep that promise, by Gawd," he
vociferated, " else that thar showman'll find out
what sorter stunt the trigger o' my pistol can do."

The significance of the threat steadied her nerves
and roused her flagging faculties. This was a des-
perate man. By blood already his hand was
stained. In the rude experiences of the primitive
mountain folk she knew that often one such crime
was followed by another, a sort of desperate pre-
cedent rendering facile the consecutive deeds, till
here and there a man could be found proud of his
record of slain foes, the deeds, more or less foul
and unprovoked. The law was slow; the place
was remote; time wrought continual changes; and
at length public sentiment accepted the crim-
inal and in a measure condoned the crime — as if,
when matters went awry, another murder might
be expected as one of his little peculiarities.

She cared for naught now but to divert Binley's
mind, to regain her sway, such as it was, to obliter-
ate her confession of love for the showman. She
broke out laughing suddenly with so natural a tone

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The Windfall

that it might have passed for genuine mirth with
any but a jealous lover.

"Wa-al, sir, Eujeemes Binley!" she exclaimed
— at the mention of his name in her clear, vibrant
young voice he glanced apprehensively over his
shoulder, reminding her of the cause he had to seek
and to maintain disguise — '" ye air too easy fooled
yerself ter be laffin' at me fur bein' made game of.
Do you reckon ef I was in love with the showman
I'd bleat it out like thatl "

In his turn logic played a deceptive part. But
for his ever- vigilant jealousy he might have been
convinced.

" That thar showman ain't never said a word o'
love ter me," — she noted the incredulity in his
face, — " barrin' complimints on the stunt, an' sech.
I ain't goin' ter dance fur nothin' — got ter hev
sa-aft sawder from the public, or somebody."

Still he was silent, standing in the middle of the
red clay road, leaning on his stick like an old man,
with his fiery young eyes looking up at her from
under the flapping brim of his old white hat.

" But that don't mean I be in love with you uns,
Eujeemes," she said severely. " I ain't thinkin'
much o' you uns, like I uster do. I be in no wise
pleased with you uns."

He was doubtful; influenced, but not over-
come.

" I dunno why," he said sullenly.

" Kase ye 'lowed ter me whenst we uns fust took
ter courtin' ez when ye killed that man ye shot

241

The Windfall

'twar plumb desperation — else he'd hev killed you
uns in another minit."

The crisis, the emergency had sharpened her
wits. Heretofore he could never bear unmoved a
reference to this incident, that had changed all the
currents of his life. She noted that he did not
wince now. Her heart sank as she drew the obvi-
ous conclusion — he was no longer sensitive to the
imputation of crime, the terror of conscience. He
only lowered at her and stolidly listened.

" You used ter say you even wisht it had been
you uns, 'stead o' him; it was jest an accident you
got the drap on him fust."

His silence was inexpressive; he waited the ap-
plication of these reminiscences.

" Ye useter say ye war no hardened crim'nal;
ye acted in self-defence, as the law allows."

He did not even nod his head in acquiescence.
He silently stared at her, as she stood very defi-
nitely outlined against a thicket of young willows
on the bank, in the soft evening glow which was
so golden on the river, so deep a daffodil tint in
the sky, that she might have suggested to a cul-
tivated imagination some bit of emblazonment or
brilliant enamel painting, in her saffron gown and
red petticoat, and with her rich auburn hair piled
high on her delicate head. She had not the great
clusters of fruits, for these were daily renewed, but
now she plucked at the artistic draped folds of
the yellow skirt in nervous embarrassment, keep-
ing silence as a great hooded waggQn rolled by,

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coming into town, laden with a farmer's household,
frantic to see the fair, and reaching their journey's
end with the dusk. The passengers looked curi-
ously at the ill-assorted pair as they jolted past, but
the team consisted of two strong mules who
mended their pace as they approached town and
fodder, and they were soon dwindling in the dis-
tance.

" You uns useter say ye was so sure ye war clear
o' the sin o' murder in the sight o' God an' the
eye o' the law that ye war willin' ter leave it ter
men — ef only ye could be sure they'd act fair by
ye!"

Still he awaited the gist of her recollections.

" An' I believed ye — else I'd never hev allowed
ye ter talk love ter me. I know some folks see a
differ in brawlin' an' slayin', an' ain't keerin' fur
sech. But ter my mind blood is hard ter wash
out."

" I dunno what you uns is drivin' at? " he said
at last, goaded to seek to stimulate the climax.

" Ye'd know mighty well, ef yer mind warn't
so perverted. They war lies ye tole me. Ye shot
a man in a quar'l, for puer spite; an' hyar ye air
ready ter shoot another fur puer spite with no
quar'l. Ye hev got a crim'nal heart an' a blood-
stained hand, an' they will never be jined with
mine on no weddin' day, that we uns useter look
to see in the good time comin'."

She tossed her head resolutely more than once
as she sounded this knell to his hopes, but her di-

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The Windfall

lated eyes were fixed eagerly upon him, as if she
doubted the policy of so stringent a measure. She
knew the man even better than she had thought.
He stood unsteadily, shifting his weight from one
to the other of the great slit boots he wore on his
shapely feet; he hesitated, fumbling dully for a
protest, while his thoughts evidently reviewed the
successive reminders which had culminated in this
untoward declaration.

" Ye knowed all the facts whenst ye promised
ter marry me, Clotildy," he reproached her. " I
never hid nuthin'."

" Ye couldn't hide it; the talk o' the mountings,
like the buzzards o' the air, war a-peckin' an'
a-circling 'bout yer crime. A body jes' needs ter
look out'n the winder to know suthin's foul an'
rotten, an' thar's death an' a bad deed."

His eyes shrank from meeting her stern gaze.

" I dunno what ails you uns ter go ter railin'
at me that-a-way, Clotildy. I ain't no wuss'n I
was whenst ye promised ter marry me, ef we could
git yer dad ter agree ter it ennywise."

" I 'lowed the killin' war a plumb misfortin', an'
no willin' fault. But hyar ye air, willin' ter dip
yer hands in human blood the minit ye air crost —
oh, the devil's grinnin' at ye from out his home
in hell!"

She held up her hands at arms' length and
drooped her head toward her shoulder, as if to
evade the view of the frightful image she had
suggested. He was insensibly, perhaps, more

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moved by her dramatic pose and the subtle influ-
ence of her agitation than repentance or fear or
even credence in her crude personification of evil
potency.

" 'Twar jes' fur love o' you uns, Clotildy. I
jes' said the word," he averred, quite conquered.
His voice dropped to a dulcet cadence; his eyes
plead with her.

" But ye meant the word; ye meant murder! "
she shrilled out. " The deed was done in yer
heart, already — a'ready ! Cain ! Cain 1 "

" I swar it warn't, Clotildy," he urged vehe-
mently, coming close to her. But she fended him
off with both hands outstretched, with face averted,
as she had evaded the grisly sight of the leering
Satan she had limned in a word. His eagerness
to recover her favour, his ardour, were redoubled
by the obstacles she interposed. It was all that
was left, to him, — so had his world narrowed, —
hunted, proscribed, endangered, doomed as he was.
He felt its value more in being thus dramatically
snatched away from his grasp than if absence had
dulled it, or it had grown chill in the lapse of
time. He was moved to protest, to clutch at it
anew, to stay the ethereal winged joy before it
might rise beyond his reach.

" I swear ter you I was jes' talkin' ter be a-tallc-
inV he declared. " I never meant him harm. I

—•I " he could scarcely find words to frame the

lie, so ready were his lips for threats and cursing
at the very thought of his rival.

245

'{The Windfall

" The truth is far from yer heart," she de-
clared. " Now, now, this minit, yer shootin' iron
is in yer boot leg, an' it's loaded with every
cartridge it can kerry."

She pointed down at his left foot, and' its un-
easy movement was like a confession of discovery.

" Why, Clotildy," he lowered his voice mys-
teriously, " that's kase I mought meet up with — "
he glanced over his shoulder, as if expecting to
view an apparition of far greater terror to his
quaking senses than the materialised horror of the
principle of evil — " the sher'ff, ye know "

" No sech fool ez ter use it, ef ye did," she
sneered. " Ye know ye'd only make matters

worse."

' Then I mought meet some o' that man's kin,"
he suggested.

" Air you uns layin' fur 'em? " she asked, " an'
they don't even live in the county."

" Naw — naw," he muttered, at a loss for a
subterfuge.

" What did ye kem hyar fur, in them scare-
crow clothes? " she gazed contemptuously at him,
her disgust for their unkempt condition, their rags,
their dirt, which was suggested rather than seen,
delineated in high disdain in every feature of her
face.

He was pitiably conscious of his unpicturesque
plight, and yet he had been proud of the complete-
ness and efficiency of his disguise.

"You uns know I couldn't come lookin' like
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myself, Clotildy, though I'd mighty nigh ruther
be drowned 'n let you see me 'pear so — so —

common."

His humility might have been expected to
disarm her.

" You kern hyar never expectin' me ter view
you uns," she said sternly. " I 'member yer
words an' how secret ye looked whenst ye said
'em. Ye kern hyar ter spy on me an' him — an'
ef ye 'lowed I liked him most, ye'd draw that
shootin' iron out yer boot that ye loaded a-purpose.
That's what ye kern hyar fur, lookin' like the scum
o' the yearth — ez ye air."

He flushed to the roots of his hair, shame for
his poor habiliments so mastered him. He felt
all in fault that he had revealed himself. He had
not that control of his faculties, the possession of
the situation, the normal ascendency of the man's
mind over the woman's that he would have grasped
under any other circumstances. He had only ac-
quainted her with the dangerous secret of his
presence here ; with his jealousy, and his fell de-
termination of revenge for the heart reft from
him; with the fact that he went armed in search
of the sweet opportunities of vengeance; with the
identity of the malefactor in the event of a deed
of violence, of some mystery of disaster. And for
what? To receive her faint-hearted denials of
her fickle faith ; to be rated and upbraided as never
before had he heard her — heard any of the sub-
missive mountain women — lift her voice in ar-

247

The Windfall

raignment of a man's deeds; to have her deliber-
ately take back her promise, or as an alternative
dictate terms; he felt that some hard compact was
in contemplation. Yet this was his only resource
to retrieve his mistake in revealing his identity,
and if her terms did not suit him he too could
keep or break a bargain. Nevertheless he did not
dream of the condition when he said :

" Clotildy, believe me fur wunst. I jes' kem
ter see you uns, honey-sweet. I pined so fur the
sight o' ye — the sound o' yer voice. I rcsked all —
the sher'ff, the jail, the man's kin — all, ter kem
ter view ye, as all mought — but me — hid out in
the wilderness. Believe me fur wunst, sweet-
heart. I only said it bekase I love ye so."

She hesitated, he thought, in a relenting mood.
She came close to him and laid her hand on his
ragged coat sleeve. She gazed up into his eyes
under the drooping hat brim.

" I will — I will believe you uns," she said, " ef
ye will do one thing."

He looked a keen, eager inquiry.

;< Take that loaded shootin' iron outn' yer boot
leg, an' leave it hyar with me," she hissed between
her set teeth.

It was little the demonstration of a languishing,
love-sick girl, seeking to protect her lover's safety
against his own impulsive imprudence. But her
histrionic intuitions, great as they were, had yet
their hampering limitations. She was a presenta-
tion, rather, of some warlike feminine spirit, a

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The Windfall

Bellona, who, having conquered in a hard fight,
inexorably dictates the sacrifices of the capitula-
tion.

For a moment, so taken by surprise he was,
he could find no words for answer. Then he
broke out with oaths so crowding on his tongue
that his utterance was for a time but an inarticu-
late mouthing of profanity.

Still close beside him she eyed him threateningly.
" I hed hoped never ter lay my tongue ter sech a
word," she declared, her eyelids narrowing. " But
ef ye won't abide by my proof I'll believe the wust
o' ye. I'll b'lieve ye threatened him in dead ear-
nest. An' I'll gin the word who ye air to the
sher'ff afore that star draps a-hint the rim o' the
mountings." She lifted her eyes to the lucent
splendours of the evening star, just slipping from
a roseate haze to the tips of the firs darkly cut
and finial-like against the clear horizon. Then
once more she gazed sternly at him.

He cast one furtive glance up and down the
vacant road. Then he stooped and drew a long
glittering weapon from the leg of his shapeless
boot, pulled high over his baggy trousers. But he
did not place it in the hand she held out eagerly.
His eyes blazed with a light far more dangerous
than the stern, steady, menacing gleam of hers, for
it was the intemperate rage of a jealous lover, of
a desperate gamester, losing all on the turn of the
dice, of a duped and overreached schemer. He
had hardly space for a step before him, to be taken

249

The Windfall

of his own free will; he was driven, hounded,
pursued, brought to bay.

" I'd be justified ter shoot ye dead, hyar in the
road, Clotildy, an' before Gawd, I'll do it," she
heard him gasp.

The dusk was deepening about them. She
could scarcely discern the expression of his face,
but she could see that it shone with thick drops of
moisture that had sprung from every pore; he
was in a cold sweat of excitement; his hand trem-
bled as he held the weapon. There was a moment of
intense suspense ; the low rune of the river sounded
its rhythmic measures through the solitude; the
mighty forests did not stir, save once there came
that strange, long-drawn breath, the sylvan sigh
of the dreaming woods. A bat on noiseless wing
went by with its sudden, shrill, mouse-like cry, as it
almost brushed against the two still, silent figures;
the star dropped down out of sight. Then she
heard the metallic click once and again as the ham-
mer of the pistol was drawn to full cock.

" Say yer pray'rs, gal," he hissed. " Before
Gawd, ye hev goaded me ter this! Say yer
pray'rs!"

She saw the weapon flash in his hand; there
hardly seemed so much reserve of light in all the
landscape, with the blurred sheen of the river, and
the cloister pallor of the pure, aloof sky, and the
deep glooms of the encompassing woods. " Say
yer pray'rs," he growled again.

She could hardly imagine such terror as pos-
250

The Windfall

sessed her; her heart had dissolved; her hands,
her feet were numb; her brain seemed as if para-
lysed; the roof of her mouth was dry and her stiff
tongue clove to it; to her it was as if other lips
framed the words, but she noted the thick falter
of the voice when she said in tones near to tears :

" God will purtect me, 'thout waitin' ter be
asked. The spar's don't pray, an' he heeds thar
fall. But 'tain't the time fur prar'r now, nor
murder, nuther. Ye dassent shoot me, Eujeemes
Binley — it's too nigh the camp on one side, an
the town on t'other. The crack of your pistol
would help my blood to cry from the yearth till the
neighbours, ez would roam the woods this night,
would git ye fast an' sure by the scruff of yer neck.
Hurt me, ef you dare! Ever'body would know
who done the deed — an' why ! "

The words seemed inspired, so definitely they
broke the power of the threat. She was not help-
less ; she was not alone. That infinitely potent and
turbulent force, the rage of a roused community,
that she had prefigured as her avenger, terrified
him as no other possibility might. He had skulked
from the deliberate law, and from the busy offi-
cers, charged with its many behests, but he could
never evade the neighbours, when every man was
ready to usurp the functions of justice and the ap-
pointed minister of vengeance in the feuds of the
community. He began to realise his precipitancy;
the noose was drawing about his own neck. He
regretted infinitely his outbreak; his ill-considered,

The Windfall

intemperate threats against Lloyd; could he not
have worked his will without even revealing his
presence here? The man could have been shot in
a crowd as if by accident, presumably by some silly,
drunken lout among the spectators, or even by the
accidental discharge of a weapon, he argued within
himself. His alibi could have been easy to prove
by the Pinnotts, themselves, if indeed his agency
could have been suspected, for they had left him
in the cave in the mountain, afraid, because of his
previous troubles, to come to the Fair. Some less
obvious fate might have been devised for the inter-
loper— something that would better perplex and
disconcert investigation. He had relied too im-
plicity on his hold on this girl's heart ; he had loved
her with too confiding a devotion. But since
he had lost her — yet perchance with this inter-
meddler out of the way she might turn anew to
him, as of yore — he would not sacrifice himself
gratuitously.

He suddenly broke into a hollow, raucous peal
of laughter, so at variance with his look, his at-
titude, his threats, that the girl nervously set both
hands against her ears to shut out the sinister
dissonance.

" Lawk-a-day, Clotildy," he mocked at her,
"yer head is in an' about turned with yer play-
acting an' song an* dance, an' stunts, an' sech. I'm
jes' a-funnin', seein' ez how I kin play-act, an* do
stunts, an' sech, too. Toler'ble well, I reckon,
seein' ez ye thunk the demonstration war genuyine.

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I wouldn't git myself tangled up in a snarl with
shootin' that thar showman fur ten dozen sech
flimsy leetle cattle ez you uns. An' I wouldn't
harm a hair o' yer head fur a whole county o1
sech ez him. Ye hev got a right ter a ch'ice
'mongst men. Make it ter suit yerse'f. Gawd
knows I don't want no gal ez ain't powerful glad
ter git me. I kem ter the Fair kase I war so dad-
burned lonesome in the mountings, an' I war sure
ez nobody would know me in this hyar rig — all
the old clothes I could find in yer dad's roof-room.
But you uns 'pear ter be a toler'ble long-headed
leetle trick, an' I do b'lieve I be safer 'thout the
pistol, like ye say, than with it. Hyar, take it —
take it — ef ye want it ! Wait— it's full cocked."
His face changed visibly, even in the dusk, at this
evidence of the deadliness of his pretended jocosity.
" Thar now, it's half cocked. But handle it keer-
ful, an' keep it out o' sight. Ef enny war ter
ask ye whar ye got it 'pears like 'twould be a toler'-
ble awkward lie ye would hev ter tell! "

The revulsion of feeling, her astonishment at
this sudden change, the amazing transition from
mortal terror to the assurance of safety, so over-
whelmed her faculties that for a moment in the
reaction she was not far from fainting. She
seemed more overwrought than in the instant of
the immediate expectation of death. She leaned
back against the bole of the great beech tree above
her head; she was glad to brace her feet against
the projecting roots; her face was white in the

253

Windfall

dusk; she could even feel the cold as the chill
quivers ran over it. Yet never did she lose the
grasp upon the pistol. She felt as if she had the
whole earth in her hands, so dominant was her
sense of power. Not for a moment did she credit
her scheming lover's protest of innocent intention —
he had meant to slyly, treacherously kill the man,
and now it was impossible. He could not with his
bare hands slay the stalwart athlete; he could not
buy a weapon, he had neither the money, nor the
courage to dare the suspicion this might provoke;
he could not borrow it, for who would trust aught
of value to so irresponsible an old vagrant as he
seemed. Lloyd was safe, and she felt a sudden
revivifying joy in the fact that it was she who had
saved him.

There is no more invincible persuasion in the
mind of a man than the overestimate of his hold
on a woman's affection. With Lloyd out of the
way, Binley argued, she would soon forget the
showman, and her old lover would easily find his
place anew.

1 'Member, Dumplin'," he said with a tender
intonation, odious now to her sensitive nerves, " ye
promised ye'd b'lieve me ef I'd leave the shootin'
iron. I kem hyar fur nuthin on yearth, precious
dear, but ter see yer sweet eyes, an' kiss the hem o'
yer frock."

He reached out his hand as if to lay hold on a
plait of the draped skirt, but she shrank back in
disgust and repulsion.

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The Windfall

" Don't— don't," she said sharply. Then, to
mask her aversion, " Somebody's kemin' now.
Thar will be travellers soon, to an' fro to the town,
an' it'll be remarked how long I stood hyar talkin'
ter a ole rag'muffin. Somebody might suspect
'twould be more natchural ef he war a peart lookin'
young man. 'Twould be better ef we war ter
part."

She began to walk slowly along — she was lan-
guid, feeble — holding the pistol hidden in a fold
of her dress.

" Time's slow, till I see you agin, Honey-
sweet," he called after her, as he stood and
watched her progress in the chasm-like rift the
red clay road made in the midst of the dense
forest.

" Time's forever, till I see you agin," she de-
clared. Her gait suddenly gathered speed, and
she fled like a deer, like the wind through the
shadows, and was lost in their midst.

He stood, his face still looking toward the spot
where she had disappeared, even after the itera-
tion of the impact of her swift feet upon the ground
had ceased to sound. He was silent as he listened,
but at length he turned with a contemptuous laugh
that yet partook of the characteristics of a malig-
nant snarl. He shook his head to and fro with the
prophetic triumph of an unspoken thought. Then
he began to retrace his way toward the town, and
though there were none to observe him, he leaned
heavily on his thick stick, after the manner of an

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The Windfall

old man, walking with one step longer than the
other, apparently feebler in one limb. He kept
his head bowed as he approached Colbury, only
now and then lifting it to gaze out from beneath
the flapping brim of the old white hat, as the town
gradually came into view, nestled — as it were — in
the heart of the great hills. They loomed darkly,
indistinguishably, above it at this hour, and the
grey and purple mists were vaguely visible, outlin-
ing ravines. The courthouse tower arose with an
impressive architectural effect in the dim night.
Stars in the vague sky struck indefinite glimmers
from the long shining steeples of the churches.
Below trees interposed, but he could discern a sort
of halo of illumination among the roofs that was
the exponent of the kindling lights heralding the
evening attractions of the Street Fair.

'256

CHAPTER XII

THE lights of the Street Carnival were all
broadly aflare in the purple dusk when
the Laniston party once more issued
forth into the square. The stars, now in scin-
tillating myriads, shone white from a remote and
richly dark sky ; across it in tattered fragments thin
tawny clouds were flying before the wind, strag-
glers from the routed armies of the storm. The
young moon, golden as it tended toward the west,
but with a vague, veiling, pearly tissue, illumined
the upper atmosphere and showed even the bend-
ing of the tree-tops of the nearest forests as they
crouched before the blast. There was a sugges-
tion of solemnity, of silence, of the great latent
forces of nature, of the unresponsive, insoluble
problems of creation when one glanced off to that
benighted landscape under the voiceless moon.
But the sordid purlieus of the little square rang
with the spielers' solicitations, the hucksters' cries,
the wild clatter of the merry-go-round, whizzing
gaily to the music of the band, — every saddle was
bestridden; every chariot was occupied with the
philandering rural youth, who saw no incon-
gruity in being obliged to shout soft nothings to
each other amidst the grinding of the machinery,
the blare of the band and the clamour of voices

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as loud as their own. The Flying Lady was
a-wing in her tent, its outer aspect suggesting a
great illuminated mushroom; and from a similar
semblance close at hand issued the heart-rending
howls of Wick-Zoo, that made many a rustic shiver
now with fascinated fear, and with reminiscent
horror at every Casual recollection far away in
his mountain home for six months to come. At
every turn was this glow of canvas, the lamps
within shining through the translucent fabric, and
threading their way amongst these tents Mr. Jar-
dine and his two fair young charges came presently
to the base of the frame of the great wheel, its
periphery reaching high up above all the glare and
sound, the glow of its infrequent electric bulbs
seeming to enstar the dim purple dusk.

The wind had freshened considerably, but it
was no deterrent to those who would fain try the
revolution, for only three of the settees were
now vacant, and while the earlier comers were
poised, gently swinging high in mid-air, the oblig-
ing custodian of the monster was affably ready to
receive the price of admission and accommodate
as many passengers as could find places. The con-
trivance had long been a trite feature at all shows
and street fairs and pleasure grounds catering to
the amusement of the humbler populace, but to
Mr. Jardine, who did not frequent entertainments
of this description, it was as astounding a novelty
as to any backwoods denizen of Persimmon Cove.
Its method of operation was of course obvious at

The Windfall

the first glance, but he asked several questions of
its custodian as he stood with the young ladies at
the wicket below and passed in the price for its
giddy pleasure, and if he had not been thus occu-
pied he might have been pleased to observe that
while they were submitted to the critical gaze of
the jostling crowd, arrayed with so special a
daintiness, their jaunty bravado wilted a trifle and
their ready laughter had frozen into an icy dignity
of demeanour. It might seem difficult for a lady
in an Irish lace blouse and a crisp white linen skirt,
determined on an ascent in a Ferris Wheel in a
rough country crowd, to maintain the aloof, pale
hauteur of a princess, but Lucia's aspect in the
light of the sparse electric bulbs and the flickering
torches was calculated to thus impress all privileged
to gaze upon her. There was a respectful silence
pervading the crowd for a few moments after they
had reached the spot, but the interests of self are
predominant, and after a modicum of patience Mr.
Jardine was unceremoniously urged.

"Does the wind affect the safety of the ma-
chine? " he asked solicitously, gazing aloft as well
as he could through the slender steel spokes to
where the topmost laden settees were swinging
back and forth, seemingly with added impetus in
the stiff breeze.

" Not at all, sir," said the functionary, as in a
parenthesis, while he counted the change, " twenty-
five, thirty, thirty-five."

" There is no danger? "
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The Windfall

" Ef ye air afeard, old man, jes' stand back an'
lemme git a chanct," a country youth admonished
Mr. Jardine.

" Lord sakes, stranger, take yer place, an give
we uns the next turn," an elderly mountaineer
suggested.

" Them folks up thar air gittin' twict the wuth
o' thar money in all this wasted time," a grudging
soul opined. And the rest of the crowd pressed
sensibly forward.

Jardine had never been so unceremoniously ad-
dressed since he was born. But the two young
ladies, who laughed on such slight provocation,
were enabled to preserve an impassive gravity now,
which fact he observed with a feeling of grateful
relief, for he was conscious of the ridiculous plight
of his elegant personality. He went on with as
deliberate a dignity as if he were aware of no
interruption, albeit acutely conscious of a score of
eyes eagerly fixed on his face.

" No danger of the wind obstructing the revo-
lution, and preventing the descent of passengers? "
he concluded his query.

"Not at all, sir— forty, forty-five, fifty. fifty-
Eve — that's O. K. — I think you'll find your change
Correct, sir. Take this seat."

Jardine moved forward with a young lady on
each arm — suddenly, as he was about to induct
Lucia into the waiting settee, he stopped immova-
ble— " Why," he exclaimed, addressing his charges,
"where is Frank? "

260

'The Windfall

The patience of the wheel-man was overstrained.
He had collected the price of admission, and if
Jardine did not care to make the ascent no money
would be refunded. He was now keen to sell the
passage in the last remaining settee.

" Take your places, sir, and let these gentlemen
come forward," he said peremptorily.

But Jardine still looked over his shoulder and
said again to the young ladies, " Where is Frank? "

"' Where, oh, where is good old Francis? '"
sang a wag in the group. " * Safe in the Promised
Land.'"

There was a guffaw of appreciation from the
bystanders and it ameliorated for the moment the
temper of the crowd, which had shown a nettle-
some rancour. It was still pressing forward, and
a dirty, horny hand offered over Jardine's shoulder
the money for the same seats. :< There air fower
o' we uns — ef he won't ride let we uns go up? "

" Why," exclaimed Jardine wonderingly, still
looking over his shoulder expectantly, " Frank
promised to get some cigarettes at the hotel and
then overtake us."

" Take your places, sir," the ticket-seller insisted.
" I can't keep the wheel standing still all night
while you collect your party."

At that moment a call came from above, and all
gazing up through the barely seen spokes and fellies
of the great wheel to where the loftiest chariots
seemed to swing vaguely among the stars and the
swift scud of brown and white clouds, perceived

261

The Windfall

how the oscillation was increased by the atmos-
pheric disturbance. The pause, too, had grown
monotonous, the air was becoming cold, and one
of the passengers summoned the official below to
continue the revolution and bring the descent into
progress.

" Take your places, sir, or I will give them to
the next comer," declared the custodian of the
wheel.

There was a scuffle in the crowd for the first
opportunity. Jardine, but for very shame, would
have yielded the places and relinquished the money,
yet he could not allow his escort of the ladies to
this coveted pleasure terminate so disastrously.
How inefficient, he reflected, how superannuated
he must seem to them, how preposterously he had
contrived to mismanage this humble little outing
on which they had set their whimsical hearts.
How cordially he would have welcomed an oppor-
tunity to slaughter with his own hands the marplot
Frank! How willingly he would have deprived
him of the pleasure of making the ascent in this
choice company by leaving the recreant and pro-
ceeding at once.

" But I can't," he said in perplexity. " We
have taken two of the settees — four seats. One
of the settees would be inadequately weighted with
only one person — its balance would not be kept —
it might not be safe. I must wait for the gentle-
man whom I expect every moment."

In vain the ticket-seller protested that the equi-
262

\The Windfall

librium of the settees did not depend upon the
weight or number of the occupants. But the wind
had now grown so ,chill that he looked up with
anxiety and deprecation at the stationary wights
high in the wheel, who were threatening to make
complaints to the municipal authorities for their
detention thus out of reason and against their will,
and demanding an immediate descent and release.
Then he said, for he had a gift for expedients and
was an excellent man of business :

" We can't wait no longer, sir. If you think
the wheel ain't safe with only one passenger on
the settee jes' let this gent take a seat alongside o'
one of the ladies, and that will sure make the
balance all right," and he summoned forward with
a nod the wag who had chanted the inquiry con-
cerning " the good old Francis."

He was a slightly built, common young fellow,
arrayed in a cheap plaid suit, a steel watch chain,
a straw hat, and he was chewing a straw as if it
were his daily provender. He had a flat face,
sandy hair, a good-natured small grey eye and no
eyelashes to speak of. He stepped forward with
nonchalant alacrity. He had evidently been se-
lected as the most responsible looking person avail-
able, and the only reason that Jardine did not faint
upon the spot was that his attention was stimulated
by the sudden offer of a substitute even more
distasteful to his prejudices.

" Do you think that with this wind more avoir-
dupois is necessary? " Lloyd's voice broke upon the

263

The Windfall

air. He had come up during the discussion and
was a witness of the speechless horror of Jardine,
who might have involved himself in some unpleas-
ant dilemma with the crowd had he declined, and
who could not of course accept the expedient.
" Well — it is up to the show folks to make these
things satisfactory to the public as well as safe,
and if the gentleman will consider me a sufficient
makeweight I'll undertake to balance this settee."

He forthwith cut the Gordian knot and broke
the deadlock by handing Lucia to the waiting
settee with a grace as definite and a manner as
gravely deferential as if the role of squire of dames
were in continual rehearsal in his repertoire. He
seated himself beside her before Jardine could pro-
test, and as they swung off together into the air
the next settee came within reach and there was
no course left to Jardine but to assist Ruth to her
place, and follow in the regular rotation of the
wheel.

Jardine had never esteemed himself an elderly
lover; in the conventional walks of life in the city
of their respective homes there had seemed no dis-
parity whatever in their ages. Now the variance
in taste, in temperament, in the outlook at life,
in the pursuit of excitement, in sheer endurance,
was definitely asserted. The sensation, as the
settees rose elastically with the revolution of
the wheel, was nauseating to his well-conducted
stomach. Then, as they paused and swung, pendu-
lum-like, to and fro, while the lower seat was

264

Tfa Windfall

filled and other passengers were liberated, the pos-
ture, the situation was revolting to his priggish
sense of dignity. He fairly dreaded the upper
dizzy reaches of the circumference, and naught but
the coercion of the circumstances could have con-
strained him to the ordeal. He maintained silence,
however, remembering the rural fling " old man "
and desiring to betray no sentiment of discomfort
to the delighted Ruth, who sat beside him gurgling
with gleeful laughter, and uttering little discon-
nected exclamations of half-feigned fear and a real
sense of jeopardy.

When, rather than incur Lucia's anger, Jardine
had lent himself to the absurd pleasuring, on which
the two girls seemed bent, he had no conception of
such a turn of circumstances as should relegate her
to the care of another, a stranger, and of all people
in the world, the manager of an itinerant show.
He scarcely knew how he should face Mrs. Lanis-
ton after this signal demonstration of his incapac-
ity to discharge so simple a duty as devolved upon
him in the escort of the two young ladies — she
could never be made to comprehend the pressure
of the situation. He sought to comfort himself
by the realisation that after all the wheel was but
a public conveyance, and for a lady to sit beside
a strange man in this vehicle was not a matter of
more pronounced familiarity than in a street car
or a railway train, an episode of daily occurrence.
In this point of view the rural wag would
have been more acceptable to his predilections

265

The Windfall

than this extraordinarily handsome man, with
the manners of a gentleman and the calling of a
strolling faker. Lucia would never seem aware
of the existence of the one, whereas the other had
after a fashion been brought to her notice; they
had asked of him the favour of photographing
the dancing-girl, though as an excuse indeed for
having been detected in surreptitiously photograph-
ing the manager. The two had on that occasion
exchanged sundry formal observations, and it
would be but natural that some conversation would
ensue upon being brought thus accidentally into
this renewal of association.

The wind blowing so freshly into their faces
almost took away their breath, and now and again,
hearing naught from the other couple, Jardine
hastily glanced up at them, thinking that it
was the gusts that annulled the sound of the ex-
clamations, silvery and joyous, with which Lucia in
this novel and coveted amusement must be regaling
her incongruous companion as they rose together
in their swing ever higher and higher toward the
stars. But the electric bulbs showed her face very
quiet and grave; her dress gleamed like "white
samite, mystic, wonderful," against the purple
dusk; she was silent and to his great gratification
the manager sat beside her as uncommunicative as
if he had been a part of the machine, essential to
its utility, like one of the dummy horses of the
merry-go-round. A very well conducted young
man, Jardine thought, with a fervent thanksgiving

266

The Windfall

that matters were no worse. He had feared that
the incongruity of a simulated flirtation with so
inappropriate a subject, might attract her eager
quest of amusement and her mirthful disposition
to horrify and tease her aunt. He formulated an
apology in his inner consciousness. He said to
himself that he ought to have known her well
enough to realise that her innate sense of pro-
priety would conserve all the essential decorums,
even in these circumstances so conducive to un-
conventionality.

But it was not a conventional observation that
Lucia saw fit to address to the manager, as he still
sat silent, and it surprised him beyond measure.

"Do you think this is a suitable business for
you?" she asked, her manner stately and almost
reproachful, her voice low but icy, her beautiful
head turning slowly toward him, and the light of
those magnetic eyes seeming to shine through his
very soul.

Lloyd had not been silent from any realisation of
the difference in their station, any humble acknowl-
edgment of the superiority of her world. He
could not speak, his heart beat so fast; his prox-
imity to the goddess that she seemed abashed his
every thought. Her beautiful dress, her dainty
hands, the exquisite pose of her head, the soft
flutter of her lovely hair in the wind, each made
Its own bewildering demand for homage. He was
in the thrall of an appreciated bliss, so perfect, so
unexpected that it almost overwhelmed him. He

267

The Windfall

had never dreamed that he might be so near heaven
as thus alone with her. And yet until to-day he
had not known that she existed. He could scarcely
realise that she could turn her head and look into
his eyes and speak directly to him — it scarcely
mattered what were the words. The day had
been hard; the dangers that menaced him were
great; the difficulties that pressed him down were
heavy; and suddenly, in a moment, he was trans-
lated into elysium. Swinging so elastically in the
wind — the medium of the air a purple dusk, the
river molten silver in the moon where the reflection
of the splendid cresset glanced upon it and the rest
mystery, the mountains vast imposing barriers
against all the sordid world beyond, the town but
a bevy of flickering lights below, and above the
pure white fires of the constant stars — they two
were side by side, while she, the ideal loveliness,
she spoke to him !

" Beg pardon," Lloyd said, catching at the neces-
sity of reply.

" Do you think this is a suitable business for
you? " she repeated.

He stared at her for a moment amazed, hardly
comprehending. Then recovering himself he
made an effort at appropriate rejoinder. " The
business ought to be better of course," he said.
Then he hesitated doubtfully. His heart could
but expand toward her, though his sensitive nature
must needs feel the topic intrusive. " You see —
we were misinformed. A town of this size gen-

26$

The Windfall

erally has an outlying population that makes up a
toler'ble pay in' crowd. We are playin' to very
little money. Business is poor — and that's the

truth " he paused abruptly, for she had

blushed so deeply in embarrassment that he felt
that he was altogether beyond his depth.

" Oh, I don't mean the financial returns," she
said, beginning to falter. She hardly knew, she
said to herself, what she would be at. Why
should she have fancied that this man would un-
derstand her — why should she upbraid him with a
calling below his merits? Certainly she did not
understand herself.

" Oh — beg pardon," he said, obviously con-
fused, gazing searchingly at her in the electric
light. Her face was pale, a trifle agitated, grave;
her eyes — they looked immortal, they were from
the beginning of the world, for all time to come —
the beautiful eyes, with a thought — was it pity,
was it sorrow, was it faith — what was it in their
depths?

" I meant — I meant," she hesitated, realising
that she must follow her suggestion through — that
there was no opportunity for withdrawal, for re-
cantation, " I meant that it seems that you ought
to have a better kind of business."

" It is a mighty good business for the money
that is in it — it is the best show for the investment
that ever was under canvas," he protested with
sudden fervour — he was loyal to the merits of his
funny little show.

269

The Windfall

It was all out of the question, she felt now — one
of her sudden mad impulses — but an explanation
must needs come. She would not for the world
decry the little exhibition, on which he had lavished
such whole-souled labour and thought and eager
solicitude. Besides she had her object which she
could hardly interpret even to herself. Her lips
curved suddenly in the sweet smile that was wont
to embellish them ; her eyes flashed with her ready
laughter. He was looking eagerly, intently at her.
But her ridicule was genial — she was laughing with
him rather than at him. " I'm not saying a word
against the greatest show on earth nor the high
dive artist, nor the snake eater, nor the beautiful
dancing oread ; but I shall never see you again, and
I thought I would tell you something that occurred
to me to-day."

The swing moved gently to and fro; the wind
came fresh and free and fluttered her white dra-
peries ; she gazed far off, far off amongst the purple
mountains; in the valley beyond a foothill she
could see a red spark of light, so high they were
now, at the very summit of the circumference, the
light from the hearthstone of some humble home.
The golden moon still showed in a deep indenta-
tion of the horizon line. Mists hovered about the
lofty domes of the range. The stars sparkled
aloof in the dark blue sky.

Still he looked intently at her and her words
came with difficulty : " Our party could not believe
that you were the manager of this little show — not

270

The Windfall

because it is a poor show, but — because — you — you
seem different. "

Oh, would the wheel never turn! What was
she saying, and why — why — should she say it?
What madness to be thus isolated between heaven
and earth so that she must face out to the end
the inexorable statement that she had so foolishly
begun.

His coolness somewhat reassured her. " Oh,
you mean that I look above my business," he said
quietly; "that is, this was the opinion of your
party."

" Yes," she replied in grateful renewal of con-
fidence, " Mr. Jardine said that you looked like
a gentleman — according to his interpretation, of
course, I mean."

" I hope, for his sake, that it is a just interpre-
tation," he said with a constrained, inscrutable
smile. " It works overtime, that word * gentle-
man M "

" So often I have heard of a hint shaping a
life," she went on to explain her meaning more
clearly; " I thought that if it should occur to you
that others esteemed you capable of better things
it might be an inspiration to you to achieve them."

" Much obliged to Mr. Jardine," he said equiv-
ocally.

" Your associates in the show are so accustomed
to you and to themselves that probably they do
not perceive the difference."

" Real or imaginary," he interpolated.
271

The Windfall

" So I thought I would tell you," she faltered,
at a loss, now that the disclosure was at an end.

" Now, Lydy, I want to say one thing to you —
and mind, this is straight goods — I thank you on
the knees of my heart for what you have said and
how you have said it. I make no mistake about
that. But you are young, and maybe you don't
know that it is a deal more important how a man
does a thing than what it is that he does. I can
think of worse things, in my interpretation of
* gentleman ' than being a showman — a good show-
man, giving full value in exhibitions and entertain-
ment for the money. Now, I wonder if Mr.
Jardine ever thought of a lawyer, who neglects his
clients' business 'cause he's lazy, or busy about his
own affairs; — or a preacher, who does the Lord's
job for the money he finds in it; — or a fortune-
hunter who gets a rich wife to take him off his own
hands; — or a politician who buys his popularity
— all these are * gentlemen ' only in a superficial
appraisement. Now, I'll tell you where Mr. Jar-
dine's view ain't in it — he thinks because I'm put
up in a sort o' ornamental case that I look like a
gentleman — but the Living Skeleton, who is an
educated man and right rich for a freak, but who
ain't put up in any case at all scarcely, Mr. Jar-
dine would never think of for a gentleman. It
won't do to trust to externals — Mr. Jardine sur-
prises me for a man of his large experience."

She gazed searchingly into his face for a moment.
She could descry no lingering suspicion there that

272

[The Windfall

she had used Mr. Jardine's name as a stalking-
horse over which to fire her own opinions. It was
a delectable deceit, but she knew that he would
have forgiven the liberty — poor Mr. Jardine!

" If ever I was to find a better trade, Lydy, I'd
take it with psalms of thanksgiving. But until I
do I ain't goin' to shirk the show because I look
like a gentleman. The main stunt is to act like a
gentleman, and I think we are all up against that."

A silvery voice called out in the night to Lucia,
and looking backward toward Ruth and Jardine
she saw that their swing was moving upward one
degree, and that they had reached the very summit
of the circumference. With the consequent de-
scent of one degree in their turn Lucia and Lloyd
were now on a lower level. There seemed no ap-
preciable difference in the height, however, as they
gazed over the landscape; the wind still rushed
down from the mountain with a pungent odour of
dank leaves and a fragrant moisture from where
the rainfall had been heavy; the clouds still in
broken ranks fled tumultuously across the enstarred
sky ; the misty moon was slipping down behind the
purple ranges — the burnished rim was visible for
another moment and then was gone ; the square was
yet filled with people, and now and then a wild,
raucous yell or loud voices in drunken altercation
gave token that the mysterious inebriates were
again astonishing the streets of the dry town ; sev-
eral of the tents were no longer illumined, the
day's work being over for the " freaks " and the

273

The Windfall

flying lady ; the merry-go-round had ceased to whirl
and whiz and the band was playing sentimental airs
on the grass in front of the courthouse.

As the swings of the great wheel swayed, gently
pendulous, in the breeze-filled purple night above
the flaring orange-tinted lights of the Carnival be-
low everything seemed jovial, contented — a suc-
cessful day drawing serenely to a close. Suddenly
from the swing on a level with the manager's lofty
perch a missile shot through the air; it passed in a
straight line below the swing where Jardine and
Ruth sat at the summit of the circumference of the
wheel, and whizzing, as if flung from a sling, it
struck Lloyd's head just behind the ear and fell,
a compact boulder, as large as a man's fist, on the
ground below.

Lloyd, bent half double by the force of the un-
expected blow, swayed forward, struggled violently
to regain his place, lost his balance, and like a
thunderbolt fell from the swing, while the fren-
zied pleasure-seekers, all safe enough, screamed in
sheer dismay at the sight.

It might have been far worse. To another man
the fall from such a height would have meant cer-
tain death, but with the presence of mind and the
trained strength and elasticity of the professional
acrobat, the showman mechanically gathered re-
newed control of his muscles, caught at one of the
steel spokes that upheld the structure of the wheel,
and thus arresting the precipitancy of the descent
turned a somersault in mid-air, another and with

274

The Windfall

still another came to the ground amidst a tumult
of shouting and applause from the crowd assem-
bling from every side of the square.

They seized upon him instantly, noting his half-
fainting condition, and carried him bodily to the
corner drug store, where the prescriptionist hastily
administered restoratives and medicated the wound
in an inner room with the door locked, while await-
ing the arrival of the physician. The manager was
in no condition to be questioned, he stated to a
policeman who was early on the scene.

With an augmented sense of the importance of
the disaster the officer, the only one on duty in the
small municipality, returned to the wheel with the
intention of taking the names and addresses of all
in the swings at the time of the attack.

There had been a panic amongst the occupants
of the swings; loud and frantic shouts for libera-
tion, for the turn of the wheel, had predominated
even over the clamours below in the square. The
wheel was as aversely regarded as if it had been
the instrument of torture of old by the dizzy wights
who clung to their places uttering frenzied ap-
peals for release, for they feared indeed that there
was a madman among them. In obedience to the
reiterated cries for extrication from their plight
the wheel had been revolved as rapidly as prac-
ticable, and although the order of precedence
among the settees was retained, the position in the
periphery at the time of the disaster could not be
established, and it was now impossible to say

275

The Windfall

whence had come the stone so quickly flung in tEe
darkness during the rotation of the machine. A
number of the swings had already been vacated
as soon as the ground was reached, and the occu-
pants of others, to evade testifying or suspicion,
leaped out when at a safe distance from the earth
and disappeared, mingling indiscriminately with
the crowd. Jardine noticed how many of the set-
tees passed by the wicket already empty as the re-
volving structure brought them within safe descent
and he imperatively motioned to Lucia in advance
to vacate the swing as soon as the pause at the
ground made it possible. The occupant of the swing
behind Jardine did not await the stoppage ; he was
a countryman in a long greyish coat and a wide
white flapping hat, and he leaped to the ground in
the shadow with a nimble temerity which Jardine
thought altogether inconsistent with his slit boots
as if bunions troubled his feet, his thick stick, his
bent figure and hobbling gait as he made off through
the shadows which the intense electric lights served
to deepen about the stand. Once he turned and
looked back and catching a far glimmer of the
light on his half-obscured face he showed two rows
of strong white teeth bared in a grin of extreme
relish.

Haxon was on the scene in a few minutes, wild
with anxiety and asking hither and thither how the
disaster had happened. " Where's my partner —
if my partner is killed we are all ruined," he de-
clared.

276

The Windfall

For Lloyd had not divulged his plan of action
to annul false suspicion and to evade the aspect
of collusion with the moonshiners who had so
craftily utilised the presence of the street fair to
profitably pursue their illegal traffic.

Haxon showed so definite a determination of
detection and reprisal that Jardine, gripping his
charges each by the elbow, propelled them through'
the darkness toward the hotel, demanding through
his set teeth by way of explaining his vehemence,
" Do you two want to be witnesses in a police
court?" But indeed, they were tractable enough
as they sped as swiftly as he dared set the pace,
that they might not seem in flight, through the
half-deserted square, past the vacant hucksters'
stands, the shadowy, lifeless tents, the vague equine
figures of the merry-go-round, stiff and silent in
the claro-obscuro, cutting across the courthouse
yard and coming at last to the hotel verandah, al-
most vacant at this hour.

Lucia was so trembling, pale and shocked that
he could not forbear saying, " I hope — I do hope,
that this will be a lesson to you," when she burst
out laughing ; and when Ruth, scarcely less agitated,
declared, " For my part I hope, I do hope that
that handsome Mr. Lloyd is not killed," Lucia
burst into tears.

CHAPTER XIII

FRANK came in presently and joined the
group, for until the hour for retiring they
were monopolising the little blue reception
room as a private parlour. He had encouraging
news of Lloyd. " He's all right," Frank cheerily
averred. " His head has got a lump on it as big as
a hen's egg, and it aches to beat the band. The
doctor says, though, it is not serious. The stone
glanced aside, didn't hit him squarely. If it had
he would have been a deader by now. Ought to
have seen ' Captain Ollory of the Royal Navy J
fairly blubber — he is a good-hearted old kid."

" But what was the motive of the attack? " Mrs.
Laniston asked, enjoying every item of the sensa-
tion, without the jeopardy and the shock.

" Nobody can imagine," said Frank.

" Some intoxicated wretch," said Jardine dis-
gustedly— he felt as if he would like to be disin-
fected, fumigated, because of the moral effluvia of
such low company — he had never been in such a
crowd before in his life.

" A drunken man can't sling a stone with a
steady hand like that," said Frank. " I did hear "
he added with a sudden after-thought, — " that
old Shadrach Pinnott's son, Tom — who my in-

278

\The Windfall

formant said was as drunk as a * fraish b'iled
owel,' — ain't that a lovely expression for a lovely
state? — declared that the man who threw the stone
was a lover of Tom's sister, Clotildy Pinnott-*-
sweet name ! — and was jealous of the manager fel-
low who had taught her to sing and dance in that
dinky, dainty way. The manager is dead in love
with her, too — so the discarded lover chews the
rag, and holds the bag, and hurls the bolt."

Lucia, who had ceased her tears as she listened,
pressing her handkerchief once and again to her
eyes, as she was thrown, half reclining on one of
the sofas, now began anew to sob nervously, and
Jardine looked anxiously at Mrs. Laniston, as if
commending the demonstration to her attention and
ministrations. But Mrs. Laniston was eager for
the news — she had had a dull evening at the hotel.

" Nefarious business," she commented.

" Of course," declared Frank. " Intent to com-
mit murder. The man tried to kill Lloyd. If the
manager hadn't been a ground-and-lofty-tumbler
once in his career — he seems to have been some of
everything — all 'round athlete — he couldn't have
broken his fall by throwing somersaults — he would
have been killed by the fall from such a height."

" But consider the frightful danger that Lucia
was in, mamma," cried Ruth. " A little swerv-
ing to one side and the stone would have struck
her head instead of his."

Frank's boyish red face grew grave and dis-
mayed.

279;

The Windfall

" Was the man in the settee beside Lucia ? " he
asked aghast, hearing this detail for the first time.

" But, for God's sake, don't mention it," said
Mr. Jardine testily, rising from his chair and tak-
ing a nervous turn through the room. " If this
miscreant should be captured and a trial ensue, it
would be a most disageeable, almost derogatory
thing for her to have to give her testimony in open
court under these circumstances. Don't — don't
mention it."

" Certainly not," said Frank formally. " I
shall bear your injunction in mind."

No one can so bitterly object to schooling as he
who stands in need of it. In reality this phase of
the possibilities had not occurred to the youth, and
he fully appreciated the value of the warning. But
he deprecated the tone, the possessory manner in
which Mr. Jardine was playing the role of tute-
lary deity to the family. The interest of the sub-
ject, however, overpowered his rancour, and after
a momentary pause he went on with an indignant
sense of offended dignity. " But how in the name
of all that is stylish did the manager of the Street
Fair happen to be escorting Lucia ? "

" Because," said Ruth, with a deep satirical bow
and a manner of punctilious ceremony, "you were
so polite as to decline to escort her."

"My child!" remonstrated Mrs. Laniston,
aghast. Then turning to the delinquent, " Why,
Francis — how is this?"

" Frank gave us the slip- — he promised to meet
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us," Ruth with true sisterly candour was bent on
fixing his remissness upon him.

" I would have given up the project," Mr. Jar-
dine felt it incumbent on him to say. " But we had
waited a good while and the crowd was very im-
patient; and when the manager proposed to take
the place it was on the score of balancing the swing,
and really it seemed a little too pointed and con-
scious to decline — the wheel being a public con-
veyance, so to speak."

" And besides, he didn't give you time — he didn't
anticipate a refusal," said Ruth. " He selected
Lucia in preference to me, thank goodness ! I won-
der that, when he was attacked, Lucia did not fall
out of the swing — it shook like a leaf in the wind."

" Francis should have been with you — I thought
that was what you went out for — to escort your
relatives," Mrs. Laniston fixed rebuking eyes on
him.

" Oh, I did — I did," Frank's repentance was al-
ways most complete and disarming. He had no
nettling reservation of justification. His square,
rosy face was crestfallen and concerned. " I simply
forgot ! I stopped for some cigarettes at the cigar
stand in the bar-room — or rather where the bar
ought to be — and there were a lot of country fel-
lows there, spinning yarns of bear-hunting and
trapping wolves in the mountains — I stopped to
listen — quaint characteristic stories — and I had no
idea of how the time was passing. I am awfully
sorry, Lucia. But my apologies do no good now."

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' You needn't apologise," said Lucia good-
naturedly, though she could not cease to sob as she
spoke. " I was not in the least hurt — only con-
siderably scared — and if you had joined us in time
I should have missed the most sensational incident
of my experience."

" It is not a little mortifying to me that I should
have been the cause of it — and of your appearing
in public on so conspicuous an occasion escorted so
inappropriately, to say the least of it."

Frank was of the opinion that Jardine was in
fault — he should have called the excursion off
rather than consign Lucia to such escort. He
should have brought the young ladies back to the
hotel, if anything more were involved than their
foolish, childish desire to swing in the big wheel.
As Frank sat solemnly gazing at the toes of his
white shoes, one hand on each knee, he was re-
solving that he would submit this view of the case
to his mother as soon as he could have an audience
with her free of Jardine's presence. It did not in
the slightest degree, he felt, mitigate his own re-
missness in failing to appear, but surely Jardine
need not have carried out the plan at all and any
hazards. And having satisfied his conscience to
this extent he began to seek to minimise the most
nettling and derogatory phases of the incident, as
it personally concerned his relatives.

" I don't believe the point that he was acting as
escort to Lucia will be brought out at all," he said.
" I noticed in the drug store that when * Captain

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Ollory ' asked Lloyd how in h-h-heavcn he hap-
pened to be in the Ferris Wheel he merely an-
swered that he went to balance one of the swings
which apparently was not sufficiently weighted to
be satisfactory. And the matter seemed to pass."

Lucia drew herself into a sitting posture. The
nervous shock she had undergone showed in her
pallor and the dark circles under her eyes. Her
dainty lace blouse, with its elbow sleeves revealing
her fair, beautifully proportioned arms, the knots
of faint-hued ribbon, her delicately arranged hair,
all seemed incongruous with the piteous aspect of
her tearful eyes and the pathetic downward droop
of her lips.

" I think that was very considerate of him, espe-
cially in view of the state of his wound — don't you,
Aunt Dora? He might easily have overlooked
that point."

" Or he might not have appreciated it," Mrs.
Laniston assented.

* Yes, he would appreciate it," said Frank, wag-
ging his wise head. " I tell you now, that fellow
is as delicate-minded as any girl. He has got very
popular here too — the town folks were fairly
gushing over him in the drug store. If that rascal
were caught they'd make him squeak, you bet your
life. He would see sights."

Mr. Jardine was not an imaginative man, but
before his mental vision was a dull night scene of
dusky purple atmosphere, veined about with white
lights, and hirpling away in the shadow was the

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figure of a grey-coated old man, suddenly turning
over his shoulder a malignant young face with a
grin of glistening white teeth.

Jardine gave an abrupt start, for it was as if this
recollection had become visible to others, when
Frank, still sitting in his pondering attitude, a hand
on either knee, and his florid face bent down, said
without preamble — " I wonder if any of you no-
ticed this afternoon at the * high-class concert ' a
fellow with an old whitey-grey coat who looked in
the back like an old man and had a young face,
if you could catch a glimpse of it under the flapping
brim of an old white hat."

" Yes, indeed," cried Ruth excitedly. " When I
said the scene was merely a by-play and the real
romance was when the manager had fallen in love
with the girl he had trained so beautifully, this
man, who was sitting in front of us, turned and
looked straight into my eyes as if he would deny
it — as if he could destroy me for the suggestion."

" I noticed that too," said Lucia. " That is
what made me remember him when I saw him
again to-night — in the same old whitey-grey coat
and flapping white hat. He was in the wheel with
us — in a swing alone — just behind you and Mr.
Jardine."

"Ladies — ladies — let me beg of you — I must
insist that you do not pursue this line of thought ! "
Jardine admonished them. " You do not want to
convince yourselves, that your consciousness may

convince others " he paused dumbfounded.

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The Windfall

He was himself advancing the matter. He was
formulating their conclusion, inchoate as yet- — he
was putting it into systematic words.

" Oh, Mr. Jardine," cried Ruth with the ca-
dence of discovery, and rising to her feet, "you
think that this man was the criminal — that it was
a case of jealousy."

" No — no — that is precisely the impression I do
not wish to give," Jardine protested. " I am sure
I do not know, and I have no right to accuse or
suspect anyone."

" Well, / know," declared Ruth recklessly; " the
whole matter is as plain as a pike-staff. I saw a
perfect inferno of wrath in his eyes when I said
that the manager was in love with that beautiful
mountain girl. And when we were photographing
her I noticed that she looked at Mr. Lloyd with
adoring eyes. He has taken her away from her
mountain lover, and these primitive people have
primitive, reprisals. Mr. Lloyd has paid the pen-
alty for his easy fascinations."

" Ruth, you must not run on so," Mrs. Laniston
admonished her, after having listened with interest
to the end of the cogent speculations. " For
heaven's sake, how ill Lucia is looking," she broke
off suddenly. " You are tired, Lucia ; you need
rest, my dear, after all these excitements. Come —
we must say good-night." She rose rather wearily
herself, and stood for a moment while the others
reluctantly came to a standing posture and gath-
ered themselves together in a groug.

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The Windfall

" It is really quite necessary that we should not
put mere suspicions into words — very unpleasant
consequences might ensue/' Jardine ventured. He
noted in the mirror over the mantelpiece how anx-
ious, and patient, and sharpened was his face. He
had already felt that his dignity had never been so
seriously compromised as in the events of the day,
but this possibility was of far more importance.

" You are very right, Mr. Jardine," Mrs. Lan-
iston assented. Then turning to Ruth with an ad-
monitory air, " Really, I think that we have had
quite enough of undesirable publicity and sensa-
tion. You might presently find yourself swearing
to your fancies in court. You must heed Mr. Jar-
dine's very sensible warnings, for which / at least
am much obliged. [Ruth wheeled about and made
him a pretty little mirthful bow of smiling ac-
knowledgments.] You might actually swear a
man's liberty away with your foolish impressions.
This is a serious matter and you must rein your
tongue."

" I am mute ; I am mute," Ruth declared gaily,
" and here is Lucia with not even a word to throw
to — to Wick-Zoo."

" I can say good-night at least — and thank you
very much, Mr. Jardine," Lucia remarked lan-
guidly. She was as pale, she seemed as fragile as
the lace she wore. He accompanied them along the
verandah to the foot of the staircase, and as their
white draperies rustled up the flight into the
shadowy dimness of the upper story he turned

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The Windfall

away with a practical anxious solicitude, character-
istic of a husband or father rather than a lover,
wondering if Mrs. Laniston realised the serious-
ness of a nervous shock, and if it would have been
too intrusive to suggest calling in a physician to
prescribe. This trend of thought led to the alterna-
tive of a stimulant rather than a drug. A glass
of wine could do no harm, and he hurried to the
office with the intention of sending up a bottle of
the best that the town afforded with a plate of
wafers or crackers of some delicate sort.

The duck-like clerk dashed his hopes with a
single quack. " Dry town, Mr. Jardine," he re-
minded the guest jocosely.

Jardine remembered his brandy flask. He had
left it, well filled, at New Helvetia.

" This is really a case of necessity," he said, and
then checked himself abruptly. The circumstances
of the nervous shock it would not be well to un-
necessarily detail.

" Mrs. Laniston ill? " asked the clerk, drawing
his visage into such an expression of respectful
sympathy as might do homage to one of the valued
patrons of the house. " Sorry, indeed. Would
be glad to provide the stimulants. Interests of
house prevent. Law strictly enforced. Sorry,
indeed."

Then a sudden new thought seemed to strike
him. " No law against tipping you a wink." He
began to laugh very much. " I wouldn't tell such
a thing to the young man, Frank — of course.

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Promising boy. Confide in your discretion. Dis-
tinguished stranger in town. Retiring disposition.
Dispenses for a consideration. Holds forth in
seclusion. Best of reasons. Follow the first tipsy
hill-billy you see. Meet up with something. Sur-
prise you. Purest liquor in the world. Absolutely
unadulterated." The duck smacked his bill to-
gether and quacked forth a laugh of the most
wicked relish.

As a matter of curiosity Jardine had been given
the opportunity more than once at New Helvetia
to sample certain spirits said to issue from no
bonded still. There hung about this beverage a
wholesome home-made flavour, or perhaps its ex-
traordinary strength and its colourless limpidity
imparted a persuasion of its purity. He was easily
convinced of the value of the commodity, but he
only doubtfully thanked the clerk and walked forth
on the verandah, his ardour very definitely
quenched.

He had made for Lucia Laniston this day sacri-
fices of inclination and conviction altogether dis-
proportioned to the trivial matters that had con-
strained them. He would not have believed him-
self capable of so much self-abnegation as they had
involved. He could have done greater things that
were in accord with his tastes, his habits, his sense
of the appropriate, with far less strain upon his
generosity. It seemed to him now that he had in-
deed reached the limit. To be recommended to
sally forth to seek a moonshiner's lair! — he was

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The Windfall

amazed and affronted that the clerk should have
ventured such a suggestion. Then he reflected that
he had said that it was a case of necessity, and not
even the drug stores were privileged to keep the
ardent stuff for medical purposes.

It was indeed a case of necessity, he said to him-
self, remembering the transparent pallor of Lucia's
face, the nerveless flaccidity of her cold little hand
as he had held it in his grasp for one moment in
the good-night leave-takings. He loved her in a
plain, home-like, hearty fashion. He would have
been constant himself, and unreceptive to little
variations of sentiment in her; he would not have
entertained captious and suspicious theories as to
minutiae of tone and word and manner; he would
not have sought unhappiness in analysing his own
affection and the degree of responsive warmth it
awakened had she once accepted his devotion and
promised her love in return. He would have be-
lieved placidly in her and continued altogether con-
fident in himself. He was solicitous for her well-
being, her health, her happiness in a reasonable
sense. Had he been sure of her heart, her ap-
proval of himself, he would not have hesitated to
deny her all the fantastic follies that had no real
value as amusement and that had served to make
the day a nettling penance to him, as it should have
been to any other sane being. But any valid pleas-
ure, any opportunity of worldly advantage, any cul-
tivated and appropriate enjoyment — he would have
strained every nerve to afford her these. The idea

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that she was neglected, that her aunt did not realise
the shock she had endured, that she was suffering
for aught that he could procure and he alone — he
clapped his correct hat on his priggish head and
started out into the night.

It was dank and cool ; the winds were still astir
in the upper atmosphere, for the clouds raced con-
tinually athwart the densely enstarred sky. The
town, stretching away in straggling streets along
the hillside, was dark save for the lamps at reg-
ular intervals; here and there an upper window
shone above shrubbery and vines, the chamber of
some late patron of the Street Fair or perchance a
sick-room. The square was almost deserted; the
business houses were dark, presenting the blank
front of their shutters to the passer-by; only the
drug store was yet alight and groups of loiterers
congregated here, more than one exhibiting the
unsteady footsteps in which the hotel clerk had
recommended his patron to walk for the nonce.

These wavering steps set a languid pace along
the quiet country road for a considerable distance.
Trees grew close on either hand but there were few
dwellings; they were dark and silent, with one ex-
ception where a frantically barking dog dragged
a block and chain around a dooryard, unaccus-
tomed to be thus accoutred by night, and possibly
restrained to avoid harassing the unusual number
of harmless wayfarers along the highroad. The
stars gave sufficient light to show the direction of
the thoroughfare and the eccentric gait of the guide

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whom Jardine had elected to follow. There was
a footbridge visible spanning the river; many a
broken stellular reflection flashed from the dark,
lustrous surface, and the foam of the rapids was
assertively white in the claro-obscuro. Jardine had
a sense of anxiety lest the feet of the " hill-billy "
in advance were too unsteady to carry him safely
across the narrow structure. But he presently de-
scried him meandering cheerfully along on the
sit, he had paused and clung fearfully to the hand-
further side, although at one point, when in tran-
rail, and cried aloud in thick, drunken accents that
he was falling — he was a goner — he was a goner!
— " Tell Polly Ann how I died — how I died — how

I died! " All the solemn rocks and all the

impressive dark solitudes echoed and re-echoed the
serio-comic mandate, till even after Jardine had
crossed he noted a crag that was still rehearsing
the words as if in conscious mimicry.

There seemed no goal to this night jaunt, and
Mr. Jardine was beginning to feel a fool in his
own estimation — a catastrophe he dreaded, for he
was fain to think well of himself — when he met
two or three hilarious, roaring wights coming town-
ward singing with more uproarious mirth than
melody — " A leetle mo' cider, too, an' a leetle mo'
cider, too."

He was glad of the darkness that precluded their
notice, as they passed, that he was of a different
type from that proclaimed by their accent. But
.as he turned a sudden curve of the road obscurity

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no longer protected him. He must have been in-
stantly visible even at the distance in the flaring
fires of an encampment which sent far-reaching red
pulsations through the woods and across the dark
waters of the river. A dozen torch standards, after
the manner of the lights of the street fair, showed
rude tables whereon barbecued meats, salt-rising
breads, and home-made cakes and pies were dis-
pensed at prices which no doubt undercut the
charges for such refreshments in the town. There
were two barrels, brazenly displayed, placed close
together with a small plank, shelf-like, from one
to the other, holding glasses and a big blue pitcher.
In the background was a stanch waggon, of which
the white canvas hood was no mean shelter
from the weather had one needed it; two or three
of the dogs were now asleep on the straw be-
neath it. An old woman, a younger one, with
an infant in arms, and a girl of eighteen, perhaps,
grouped about the fire gave a touch of domesticity
to the scene. Naught could seem further removed
from the suggestion of law-breaking and defiance
of vested authority. An eating-stand at a distance
from the town, to escape the municipal tax on a
lunch counter, and yet catch the country custom,
to make some small profits on the occasion and see
the Carnival — what more candid? Jardine felt
pierced through and through with the vigilance of
the eyes focussed upon him as he advanced in the
light. And never was there more virtuous indig-
nation expressed in voice and manner than was

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The Windfall

shown by an elderly man with a bushy red beard
and a pale stolid face and a brown jeans suit, stand-
ing at the refreshment counter, as Jardine came up
and proffered his request.

" Brandy — or whisky? why, stranger, we ain't
sellin' whisky and brandy. It's agin the Fed'ral
law 'thout ye air able to pay a tax and hire a spy
to watch you. And it's agin the town law, bein' a
dry town. We uns hev got a good supper cooked
an' some powerful ch'ice apple cider hyar though.
We uns got a fine orcherd in good bearin' this
year, but we wouldn't even sell a bottle o' cider —
we sell by the drink— thar ain't no money in it
cept' by the drink."

And when Jardine had declined this refreshment
the old woman beside the fire rose and came for-
ward and earnestly essayed to sell him one of the
home-made baskets. She was most voluble as she
recommended her wares. " They ain't no cur'ous
baskets like them Injuns make over ter Qualla-
town, stranger," she said. " They ain't no quare
shape with some kind o' spell in the weavin' — they
tell me that them baskets kin be read like a book
by them ez hev got the key o' the braid. But I
ain't one as would want some onholy- witch-like
savage saying ter be in use round my fireside, a-
repeatin' a spell or a curse on me an' mine ever'
time it was handled in the light. Now, hyar is a
reg'lar, homefolks, sanctified, Christian basket, ez
don't mean nuthin' but a quarter of a dollar.
That's all the magic there is about it. It's good

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The Windfall

and solid and roomy, stranger, an' yer lady would
find it so convenient to hold chips around the
hearthstone. Try it, stranger— jes' twenty-five

cents."

Jardine was ashamed to refuse altogether any
expenditure of money and presently he was trudg-
ing along the road to Colbury with the basket in
his hand and a fund of information as to the in-
genious methods in which the moonshiners were
successfully defying the Federal law. Had he been
known to the distillers, or perhaps had he merely
demanded a drink he would have been served with
the brush whisky in one of the primitive gourds,
since the evidence must needs have gone down his
throat at the stand, and few men would have
sought the informer's reward at the risk of the in-
former's fate on the testimony of a recollected
flavour, which is hardly proof in any court. That
the two barrels indeed contained cider was obvious
by the fragrance — the more fiery liquor was in some
secret receptacle not so easily seen and seized, se-
cured perhaps when the moonshiner turned back
to the spring, which he did more than once to rinse
the gourds in the waters of its branch.

Despite the appearance of an invincible security,
however, Jardine was forcibly reminded of the
pitcher that goes to the well ; he saw clearly in the
future the inevitable consequences of the extreme
daring of the old moonshiner, rendered unduly ven-
turesome by long immunity and prideful faith in his
own ingenious craft. The idea struck Jardine's

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The Windfall

mind, with a most unpleasant collocation of cir-
cumstances, that the Street Fair must profit largely
by this extraordinary opportunity to the inebriates
of the whole surrounding region. Since the clos-
ing of the saloons in Colbury the poorer class, by
far the larger, must needs be constrained to pur-
chase in the quantity by shipment from some city,
or in default of the price for this luxury, or the
hindrance of distance and ignorance, be reduced to
the absolute despair of temperance. Doubtless for
the facilities of boozing by the drink they had
flocked into Colbury by scores, where in the close
vicinity the flowing bowl might be drained for a
nickel, and the moonshiners might justly have con-
sidered themselves entitled to a share of the profits
of the show since their powerful attraction must
have added so largely to the gate receipts. He
shrugged his shoulders mechanically in the effort
to shake off the suspicion which he had begun to
entertain. The Street Fair was so obviously play-
ing in hard luck; was so pitifully inadequate as an
exhibition, in his opinion; its financial resources
were evidently so limited that this phenomenal op-
portunity of recruiting its exchequer rendered it pe-
culiarly liable to a charge of collusion with the
moonshiners, in the estimation of almost any man
seeking the solution of the problem of so many
inebriated spectators of the show on the streets of
a dry town. Only the appearance and manner of
Lloyd caused him to doubt his conclusion, and then
he wondered at himself that the endowments of

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unusual personal beauty, a thing valueless in a man,
absolutely apart from character or station, a gift,
an accident, together with a grave and gentlemanly
address, which was also a fortuitous circumstance,
should weigh with him for an instant where an itin-
erant faker was concerned. In this development
of the situation he was infinitely nettled that this
man, the manager of the show, and doubtless the
prime mover and responsible agent of this unlaw-
ful whisky traffic, should have been brought into
any association with Miss Laniston, however cas-
ual and temporary. He ground his teeth with in-
dignant contempt that it was possible that she
should ever exchange a syllable with such a man,
should be seated beside him in the Ferris Wheel
in the midst of an attack upon him, stimulated by
jealousy or whisky or both. Jardine was not a
profane man, for oaths are ever bad form, but
between his gritting teeth he cursed Frank Laniston
again and again that his callow folly should have
left his position vacant by her side, and open to
the possibility of such a contretemps.

Jardine canvassed almost in a state of nervous
panic the probability that these facts might be
remembered by the police should the camp of the
moonshiners be raided by the revenue force and
the manager of the Street Fair be implicated.
Even if no more should result than a casual men-
tion in such an investigation it would be an indig-
nity insupportable in his estimation. And should
the miscreant who attacked the manager be dis-

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The Windfall

covered would not her testimony be required to
establish the facts? The tormentingly acute div-
ination of the two young girls had fixed on the
culprit, he was convinced, and should some unwary
word from them lead to his discovery a prosecu-
tion would involve to them as witnesses the most
annoying and derogatory conspicuousness. He
hardly knew how he could answer to his friends,
their respective fathers, that while in his care,
assumed of sheer good-will though it was, such
social inappropriateness could be permitted to
supervene. They were not at the end of this
miserable tangle — and he felt greatly to blame.
Yet with no authority, a disregarded advice, a
thousand hampering constraints on speaking his
mind candidly, how could he do more than he had
in protection, and counsel, and care? He wished
to high heaven that the Laniston Brothers were not
so intent on turning the trick in the late advance
in the price of cotton, and would give their per-
sonal attention to the precious interests of their
families. He was conscious that by this collective
term he meant only Lucia, and he was fair enough
to admit to himself that under the chaperonage of
her aunt, and with the companionship of her
cousins, male and female, and the volunteer tute-
lage of a friend of the family, an experienced man
of the world, George Laniston was amply justified
in thinking his only daughter safe enough, and
well out of harm's way.

So perverse were the circumstances that Jardine
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The Windfall

thought that even his own excursion to-night might
be subject to misconstruction — and he hedged im-
mediately on the chance. As he had not succeeded
in his quest there was certainly scant utility in
seeming to have patronised the moonshiners.
There was no great change in the aspect of the
town as he entered it — a torch a-flare here and
there among the tents; the street lamps shining at
regular intervals; the drug store alone alight
among the silent business houses of the quadrangle;
the gas ablaze in the hotel office, and although, so
short was his absence, the duck was off duty he
still lingered in the room lighting a thick cigar
at the little lamp for the purpose on the counter.

" No go," said Jardine* — he had earlier thrown
away his basket.

The duck raised astonished eyebrows. " I'd
resent that. Personal. Listen, will you ? "

A voice mellow, clear, floated in from the street
* — singing in beatitude — marred only by hiccoughs,
and now and then a wild involuntary wail off the
key. :< We won't go home — we won't go home —
we won't go home till mornin', — till daylight doth
appear."

When silence ensued the duck said significantly:
" All the rope they want — hang themselves — don't
even run them in. Visitors soon. Official."

'298

CHAPTER XIV

THE next morning when Jardinc issued
early forth from the little blue reception-
room, where he had tossed sleepless al-
most throughout the night on the folding cabinet
bed, he paused on the verandah, staring in stulti-
fied amaze. Not a tent was visible on the square,
not a huckster's stand. The great circumference
of the Ferris Wheel no longer vexed with its in-
congruous periphery the august mountain scene
which it had framed. Not a spieler's horn could
be heard, nor an echo of the brazen melodies
of the band; the wooden horses of the merry-go-
round seemed to have galloped away in the night.
There was not even the mast for the high dive,
nor the reservoir that broke the fall of the leap-
ing acrobat. The street fair had vanished, like an
exhalation of the night in the beams of the morn-
ing sun. Jardine might have doubted his senses,
save for the crowds of wondering rustics that
wandered dolefully up and down the pavements,
disconsolate, disappointed. Now and again groups
paused before written notices pasted on the door
of the courthouse and of the post office, and at
the distance seemed to discuss it, and then moved
aimlessly away, making space for other groups on
like errands. Another placard was at the main
entrance of the hotel, also under frequent consul-

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tation by drearily strolling groups of the more
prosperous class of country folks. It was of course
impossible to decipher it at the distance, but as
Jardine moved toward it he was accosted by the
duck-like clerk, seated in the office window opening
on the verandah.

"Complete surprise, ain't it?" said the clerk
jovially. " Jig's up."

" The fair is gone? " asked Jardine futilely.

" Do you see any fair? " quacked the duck. " I
don't." '

" Isn't it very sudden? " Jardine demanded.

" Liked to broke my neck," declared the clerk
hyperbolically. " Left on the morning train."

"What's the reason for it?" Jardine asked,
looking again toward the posted notice.

He was experiencing the most intense relief.
All the troubles that had infested his consciousness
were annihilated. The vanishing of the street
fair was like awakening from a nightmare — a
deep sense of gratitude contended with a feeling
that his troubles had been unreal, overstrained,
gratuitous.

" Oh, they give the plain facts — straight goods
— honest fellow, that Lloyd. Couldn't pay ex-
penses any longer — only made their transportation
in three days. Disbanded show, and lit right out."

He had jumped down on the inner side of the
office, then turned anew to the window, as If with
a sudden thought.

;t That fellow, Captain Ollory — keen to get

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away — never saw a man so rattled! Here in the
office last night they had it out — one of them had
to stay. He wouldn't — he'd have walked to New
York first — said so— perfectly wild ! "

Jardine looked for a moment as if he had beheld
a Gorgon's face — his own seemed petrified.

" Then that manager — that rascal Lloyd is here
yet?" he asked.

The clerk seemed disconcerted.

" Hard phrase, Mr. Jardine." Then he hesi-
tated as if he thought he had said too much. It
was no part of his duty as clerk of the Avoca
House of Colbury to censor the guests' criticism
of each other. " Poor business, but no man could
behave more fairly. Lloyd wanted to go, but gave
up the preference. Ollory seemed possessed to get
away — Haxon, I should say. And there was not
money enough for both."

Jardine could hardly control his irritation, the
revulsion was so great. He had just been liber-
ated from all his fears and anxieties to find himself
suddenly enmeshed anew. It mattered little in-
deed that the foolish, sordid, futile parapher-
nalia of the fair had been removed, if the point
of danger in divers interpretations, the man him-
self, remained. As he stood by the window,
frowning down in deep absorption at the floor,
silent, forbidding of aspect, cold and formal as
always, the clerk resumed, somewhat at a loss.

" Lloyd, too, seemed frantic to be off," he said.
" He could hardly resign himself."

'The Windfall

He laughed a little at the forlorn plight; it
had to him its ludicrous suggestions. ' Sent for,
but couldn't go,' " he quoted gaily.

Jardine made no answer; he was reflecting that
both men had doubtless the best of reasons for quit-
ting the country; he hardly questioned that they
were amenable to the Federal law in some measure
for conspiring with the distillers for the sale of
illicit liquor, and reciprocally profiting thereby
through the enterprise of the street fair. The man-
ager was obviously the responsible individual, the
principal, and his apprehension would rebound with
all its conspicuous derogations upon the personnel
of Jardine's own select party. Since one must needs
remain, it was a thousand pities that that one could
not have been the innocuous Captain Ollory.

He did not speak, and the clerk had an unpleas-
ant fear that he had offended him, for the sake of
a phrase, forsooth, in the disparagement of the
most absolute stranger, for whom the duck in
reality did not care a single quack. He waxed
suddenly very genial and confidential, and Jar-
dine, who under other circumstances would have
resented the gdssip as familiar and intrusive, was
an eager listener — absurdly enough he had so much
at stake in the personality of this man Lloyd.

'Twas as good as a play," the clerk laughed,
" in the office late last night, — a much better play
than any they bill — when they counted out the
money — had it in my desk. All couldn't get off.
Ollory wanted to leave Wick-Zoo, too, but it

302

The Windfall

seemed the wild man had money of his own. They
paid him with a due bill, ha, ha ! Ollory wanted to
leave the Fat Lady; he said she was too fat to be
disturbed — I don't know whether he meant men-
tally or physically — and Lloyd — he's a funny fel-
low!— he swore he wouldn't mention such a thing;
she was a high-toned lady, if she was a bit stout!
He declared he never would run off and leave a part
of his company stranded, least of all a woman,
and one, by her infirmity, helpless to shift for
herself — he's not a bad egg, Mr. Jardine ! When
Lloyd saw it must fall between himself and Ollory
— Ollory had the money in his paw; he grabbed
it as soon as it was laid on the counter, and to do
him justice he counted out only the transportation
— and Lloyd had the bag to hold, he tried to raise
the money for his railroad fare on a personal valu-
able that he's got. Told him nobody here did
pawn-broking. Tried me."

" Why didn't you lend it to him?" exclaimed
Jardine suddenly, seeing a way out of the diffi-
culty. It had never occurred to him to pay the
man to go, lest he implicate himself in he knew
not what — though money was no object in this
connection. But it was indeed grievous to per-
ceive a means of extrication so simple, so near, and
cast aside.

" Didn't know how valuable valuable might
be," the clerk laughed. " Step in here, Mr. Jar-
dine. Show it to you. Left in safe."

It was a thing of which Mr. Jardine would
303

The Windfall

never have believed himself capable as he stepped
through the window and addressed himself to ap-
praise a valuable which an unknown man had left
in the custody of an hotel safe. But he made up
his mind, however worthless the trinket might be,
to advance to the clerk the necessary sum, to be
loaned through him, without mention of the source
whence it came. Anything to be rid of the incubus
of the showman!

His face changed as the clerk touched the
spring of a small leather case. There, reposing
on a bed of faint blue Genoa velvet, so faded as
to be near green, was a ring set with a large pig-
eon's blood ruby; a row of very white diamonds
was encrusted into the dull gold of the setting, but
the red stone was held up in claws, and was visible
throughout.

Jardine had a sudden monition of caution.
These were gems of price, doubtless stolen! He
could not — he would not involve himself further
in such a matter, whatever aesthetic discomforts,
whatever mortifying publicity incidents of far less
moment might occasion Miss Lucia Laniston.
Every throb of his impulse was still. He was
once more the cautious man of the world.

"Worth the money?" the clerk queried curi-
ously.

" Worth forty times the money," Jardine calmly
responded. If the Avoca House should oblige
a guest by lending money on good security it would
rid him of his dilemma, and affect him no further.

3°4

Tht Windfall

But beyond this he promised himself he would not
be urged by his adoring, worshipful reverence for
the pellucid aloofness and unapproachableness be-
fitting a young girl, that lent her the dignity and
remote charm of a star. There were sordid mat-
ters to consider in this world, and the responsibility
of trafficking with stolen goods was one of them.

"But look here; these rubies are sometimes
what you call doublets, ain't they? Just a sort of
veneer of the real thing over glass."

" This is no doublet," said Jardine, taking the
gem into his hand. " This is a genuine and very
perfect stone of a very rare type — the pigeon's
blood ruby."

As he looked at it he was impressed with the
antique aspect of the ring; the setting was in
gold of several different tints — green, red, yellow
in two shades. He had not given much attention
to ornaments of this order, but he knew that this
method of setting was antiquated, not to say an-
tique. He thought of the incongruity with the
sordid little show — the high dive-, Wick-Zoo, the
Ferris Wheel. More than ever the conviction that
the gem was stolen took possession of him. He
suffered suddenly a qualm of conscience. He felt
that the clerk was of limited experience and needed
a warning. He ought not to be suffered unneces-
sarily to lose his money and involve himself.

"It is so fine, so rare, and so valuable that
I am very sure it must be stolen. I don't say by
whom, or when."

The Windfall

" Oh, Mr. Jardine," said the clerk, quite self-
sufficient. His cheek reddened. He was blushing
for the imputation. " Don't you think you are
quite a little too suspicious ? "

"Perhaps — perhaps! At all events you are
warned," said Mr. Jardine, as he walked past the
safe, around the desk, and out of the office by the
door, rather than informally through the window
as he had entered.

The clerk looked after him with no very friendly
eyes, then he snapped the old ring in its dingy
leather case, and locked it in the safe with Mr.
Jardine's careful warnings. The value of the
jewels ascertained he was prepared to lend the
amount of transportation upon it; should he not
be repaid he would profit enormously, and he was
altogether willing to take the risk that however in
the vicissitudes of his life the showman had come
by the ring it was honestly owned.

Before the hack started for New Helvetia — it
was indeed standing in front of the door — Frank
came fuming up into his mother's room, where
she, his sister, and his cousin were putting on their
hats, preparatory to the journey. The young girls
were fresh and bright again in their white dresses,
which had, indeed, been sent to the laundry to
be pressed and now showed as unwrinkled and
perfect as if the stiff linen skirts and dainty little
embroidered jackets were donned for the first time.
The embroidered frills of their lingerie hats
shaded, yet did not shadow, their fair faces, which

306

\The Windfall

showed no trace of the fatigue and excitements of
yesterday, save that Lucia seemed a bit pale, and
her eyes were larger and more appealing than
usual. They were putting on their long silk gloves,
now and -then turning to eye each other from head
to foot, for they entertained an enthusiastic mutual
admiration, and were wont to point out a hair
awry, or a line out of plumb with a serious re-
buke, as of sacrilege.

Mrs. Laniston was not ill-pleased to be getting
back to New Helvetia, but she regarded the out-
ing as a highly successful break to the monotony.
She could not enter into Mr. Jardine's sentiments
in reference to the little fair; she had noticed his
impatience with its grotesqueness and shortcom-
ings, and in the privacy of the domestic circle had
commented adversely. Did he think it was the
Paris Exposition? she had demanded sarcastically
of her daughter and niece. There is a sort of
leniency of judgment peculiarly becoming to the
highly bred and highly placed. Mrs. Laniston
realised, for example, that the little village hotel
was not the finest type of house of entertainment
in all the world, but one was fairly comfortable
there, and she seemed courteously unaware that
there was aught better or more pretentious in New
York or London, so long as she was under its
hospitable roof. To be easily entertained with
the best attainable was an instinct with her, and
when Frank, his boyish face red and his scanty
frown drawn above vexed and troubled eyes,

307

The Windfall

paused with his hands in his pockets, complaining,
" I do declare, that fellow Jardine bullyrags the
life out of me," she was predisposed to be her
son's partisan, and to discriminate against some
ultra-fastidious prejudice of Mr. Jardinc's of the
sort which, if regarded, would already have de-
stroyed every vestige of pleasure which the hum-
ble little outing could afford. She whirled half
around from the bureau, where she was standing
before the mirror putting on her wide black hat,
holding it with one hand, while with the other
she thrust a hat pin tentatively back and forth
through the structure, seeking to find a steady grip
in her masses of grey-blond hair.

" In the name of pity! " she ejaculated, gazing
inquiringly at him.

" Ye-es," he whined, " anybody would think I
was born yesterday, and couldn't find my way to
the hall door there."

" Well, what is it now? " she asked impatiently,
with another thrust of the hat pin forceful enough
to seem to the uninitiated very dangerous.

'" Well," he pushed both hands far down in
his pockets and took an aimless step to and fro,
his red face overcast and crestfallen with the
sense of being thought a fool, and such a realisa-
tion of his own immaturity as prevented the re-
couping satisfaction of a full faith in himself. " I
found that that fellow Lloyd would be here a little
while waiting for remittances — it seems the whole
show came very near being stranded, and, like the

308;

The Windfall

captain of a sinking ship, he is the last to leave.
Well, it seemed no great absurdity to me, as he is
a first-class, all-round professional athlete, such as
I am not likely to meet again in a hurry, to ask
him to give me a few lessons in boxing. I'm bound
to have exercise, and a punchbag is such a lone-
some fool 1 "

Mrs. Laniston evidently did not see the point
as yet. The hat adjusted at last, she began to
pull on her black silk gloves over her rather
bony jewelled fingers, gazing the while into the
mirror, to which reflection he addressed his appeal.

" Do you see anything extraordinary in that
project?"

" Except the expense of coming from and going
to New Helvetia," she replied a little wonderingly.
" I always did think the monopoly of that hack
line ought to be put down. The charges are ex-
tortionate— it is practically impossible to go back
and forth as one might like to do in excursions
about the country if rates were reasonable."

" Why, that is what I told the fellow— that I
could better afford the price of the lessons if he
were waiting at New Helvetia, instead of here in
Colbury."

"And then?" Mrs. Laniston was very dense;
she did not yet perceive the point.

" Then Lloyd inquired as to the hotel rates at
New Helvetia, and when he found they were lower
at this season than the charges for transient guests
at this place he said that he had no objection to

309

The Windfall

going to New Helvetia — that it would be a change
for him, and that he was fed up with Colbury."

" See here, Frank, you are developing a gift for
oratory. Why don't you come to the point, if
there is any point ?" Mrs. Laniston, who herself
could hold forth so volubly and with such a flow
of well-considered words, admonished him.

" Why, it seemed such an advantageous ar-
rangement; he said, first off, that he could give
much better value for the money. He could coach
me, too, for the track team — it seems he was once
a short-distance sprinter — free of charge. He
said we could just run up and down the roads
for fun, if they were as good as I said. And then
we could have a few bouts with the foils, once in
a while — he took a prize for fencing once in an
athletic contest — showed me the medal. And I'm
getting so fat!" Frank's voice rose to a dreary
plaint. " I was perfectly scandalised this morning
when I stepped on the public scales on the other
side of the square "

" We understand," murmured Ruth. " Where
they weigh the other prize calves."

He looked at her with a little grin of apprecia-
tion, but, absorbed in the subject, went on without
retort. " I shall be ruled out of every athletic event
at college this yean Whereas, if I train down, and
have this splendid coach to get me fit I may be
able to take my place on the gridiron just as if
I hadn't been away; it's only a substitute playing
with the Eleven now."

310

The Windfall

Mrs. Laniston's mind quickly reviewed the sit-
uation. So long as athletics did not interfere with
scholastic grading, her husband and she had agreed
that they were to be encouraged. Frank had
neither the tastes nor the application of a student,
but he possessed a good mind, and a very sound
conscience. Since his parents desired he should
have a collegiate education, and take a degree, he
read with great diligence, and they sugar-coated
the pill by endorsing the college athletics, and giv-
ing him all the outdoor sport that was craved by
his physique, abounding in vitality and vigour. It
was a compact in some sort, unacknowledged, but
very definitely appreciated, that he should grind
and toil, and assimilate a thousand ideas for which,
so far, he had neither use nor liking, and pass
his examinations creditably, and that he should be
unmolested to play as he would.

"Yes; it seems an excellent arrangement for
the purpose. Mr. Jardine is a man of very judi-
cious conclusions, but I can't imagine his objections
in this instance."

" Simply threw a fit ! I told him that Lloyd
and I had signed up a little contract, for I want
only to promise to pay for the boxing lessons. I
couldn't, out of my allowance, undertake to pay
for all that fellow could teach me — he could teach
me something of value for every wink of my eye-
lids. And Lloyd chimed in, too, and said it was
best to have it understood, for we would probably
be lonesome, and spend the time playing — with

The Windfall

Indian clubs, and dumb-bells, and wrestling — and
we had better set down what was to be work, and
what was to be pastime."

"Come to the point, Frank! You are long-
winded ! " his mother admonished him. She had
sunk into a chair, and, as the two girls were ranged
side by side on the sofa, he stood before the
family in the guise of a domestic orator, and made
a desperate bolt at the main statement of his
disclosure.

;< Threw a fit! Adjured me not to compromise
the dignity of the family ! "

There was a feminine chorus of exclama-
tions.

" Crazy, ain't he? " said Frank. " I told him
a few lessons in boxing couldn't compromise the
dignity of any family that had any dignity. He
said I perversely misunderstood him. For a fact
he did. Said it was the person he objected to.
Emphasised person as if he would like Lloyd
better if he went on four feet, like Wick-Zoo, once
in a while. I asked him what was the matter with
Lloyd. Said that on account of my folly he had
had an opportunity to ride with Miss Laniston in
the Wheel."

" Well, upon my word! " exclaimed Mrs. Lanis-
ton.

And the two young ladies grew breathless and
round-eyed.

" It was his own fault — he should have called off
the event; he could have said that he was waiting

The Windfall

for me; his party was not complete. I did not
dare suggest this, though. I declare I have had
to eat enough humble-pie this morning to destroy
my appetite forever." And Frank drew out his
handkerchief, and, with a long-suffering air,
mopped his shining, roseate, fresh face.

" I think it was very ill-judged in Mr. Jardine
to bring the mention of Miss Laniston into the
matter," said Mrs. Laniston, her delicate features
flushing with irritation.

" In my humble mind that was the only impro-
priety committed," said Frank. " But of course
on account of my youth, and being a sort of stand-
ard fool, I did not dare to say so. But I did pluck
up enough to state that we could not consider
Lloyd's riding in the Wheel with Miss Laniston
in any sense except as a convenience to her, to
weight the machine, and we could not base any
action on any other hypothesis."

* You were very right," said his mother heart-
ily, and Frank, encouraged by this infrequent and
unexpected approval, took heart of grace to con-
tinue, fetched a long sigh of relief, and once more
mopped his face with his handkerchief.

" I said to Jardine that there had been no pre-
sumption whatever in the man's conduct, and that
the suggestion was offensive to us."

" Very well, indeed," said Mrs. Laniston. She
was thinking that Frank, after all, was not so
incompetent as a squire of dames, and was realising
how the contortion of the circumstances in Jar-

3,13

The Windfall

dine's mind would affect George Laniston, should
he hear that version.

" But you won't believe that he wouldn't accept
the situation. He called me a boy, and of course
I had to submit to that. He said the showman
had noticed our family at table — he had been of-
fended to observe it. As if, in this free and en-
lightened country, people should fall on their faces,
with their faces in the dust at our august approach.
I reminded him that the bullet-eyed man stared
at us, and that it was we who stared at the man-
ager, who is liable to that sort of thing, for he
has got the face of a god or an archangel — told
me, when I asked him where was his photograph
in the show collection, that he had promised Duroc,
the painter, not to be taken till his great picture,
* The Last Day/ is finished. Lloyd is the model
for the angel Gabriel in that, and he says it's
great, though he thinks the horn makes him look
like a translated spieler."

" But about Mr. Jardine "

" Mamma, I think I am the most put-upon
fellow that ever lived. That great Jay stopped
Lloyd as he passed and told him that I was a
minor, and incapable of making a contract — in my
presence, mind you; in my presence!"

" Why, Frank ! " exclaimed Mrs. Laniston,
amazed and offended.

" Oh, he did it in a sort of innocuous way —
he's very crafty; said I'd been telling him about
the arrangement, and then, as if jocularly remind-

3H

The Windfall

ing me of a disability, said that I was a minor,
and the contract invalid. He slicked it over and
smoothed it down. I think he could smooth down
the Great Smoky Mountains, if he should try his
hand on them."

"And what did Mr. Lloyd say?" asked Mrs.
Laniston, very seriously annoyed and indignant.

" Really, he seemed the best-bred man of the
two. He said he would consider my word as good
as my bond — the contract was merely a memoran-
dum, as between us two, determining what exer-
cises should be considered business and be paid for,
the rest being merely amusement and voluntary.
He passed it off easily, but I felt extremely out of
countenance."

" I must say Mr. Jardine takes a good deal on
himself," Mrs. Laniston said, holding her head
very high, the colour mantling her cheek, " and
his standpoint is very unreasonable. That you
should not hire the services of an athletic coach,
because he took a vacant place beside Miss Lanis-
ton, in order to weight the machine and make it
safe, there being no one else for the purpose in the
party, he being the manager and owner of the
apparatus, is more than preposterous. We must
take no notice of Mr. Jardine's assumptions that
there was anything derogatory in the matter. We
will treat the man like any other stranger. And
now let us get back to New Helvetia where, thank
a merciful providence, there is somebody besides
the wearisome Mr. Jardine ! "

The Windfall

The approach to New Helvetia ushered Lloyd
into a new experience, despite his wide wanderings
in many ways. The trails he had followed had not
sought seclusion; a full population, showward bent,
was the desideratum of his journey's goal hith-
erto. He had scarcely realised that there was so
lonely a region on the face of the earth as the
dense and gigantic forests through which the
smooth, hard, red clay road led. The scarlet oak,
the sumach, and the sourwood on exposed slopes
to the north had turned red, and flaunted gor-
geously against the blue sky. The foliage of hick-
ory now and again appeared at sudden turns, a clear
translucent yellow from trunk to topmost twig.
Here and there great grey crags showed through
boughs still green and lush, that yet held the sum-
mer captive, loath to let it go. There was a
stream that kept the road company, as if apart
they might be affrighted in the vast unbroken wil-
dernesses, and now it showed a miniature cataract,
clear as crystal, fringed with foam, leaping down
great broken ledges ; and now it brawled, widening
into marshy tangles by the wayside; and now
it ran over rocks, and flashed and frothed like
rapids; and now it showed stretches of smooth
golden flow above a bed of gravel, with here and
there the sudden silver glinting of a water-break.
He watched it with a sort of fascinated revery,
unconsciously marking its moods and garnering its
spirit. Occasionally a gap in the woods showed
the mountains, vast, endless, austere, dominating

The Windfall

all the world, and he appreciated that the road
was continuously rising by gentle degrees to higher
and higher levels. The horses were fleet and
strong; the roads only fairly good, for in some
localities the rain had converted the red clay into
mud of a most tenacious character; elsewhere the
downpour had come with such force as to beat
the ground hard. Here they bowled swiftly; the
driver, evidently, had a monition toward atoning
for the interval when they toiled and bogged
through the sloughs. There had been a delay at
the last moment; a new passenger presented him-
self who could not be ready to start till one o'clock,
and, though Mr. Jardine had protested that he
had chartered the hack, — in the phrase of the
region, — the driver declared that the orders of the
line required him to take up all the custom he
could gather before it was necessary to leave town
in order to make the run before dark. The episode
had greatly irritated Jardine, but he found a cer-
tain consolation in the fact that the presence of
this representative of the general public, so to
speak, exerted a repressive influence on the ex-
uberance of the two young ladies. The incidents
that had marked the trip down were not repeated
— the pauses to alight and gather wild flowers;
the shrieks of delight over some lovely vista of
the stream and protestations how dear it would be
to wade in the shallow crystal flood, floored with
golden gravel and great solid ledges of moss-
grown rock ; the determination which could not be

The Windfall

gainsaid to visit the shaft of a mine, worked for
silver, in a primitive way, hard by, where a wind-
lass was in operation. Lucia unexpectedly stepped
into the swaying bucket above the abyss of ninety
feet, holding her skirts tight about her, and or-
dered the men to lower her, that she might look
into the intersecting tunnel. " I'll bring you luck,"
she declared. " I'm a mascot! "

" Shure I niver knew till to-day, leddy, that
anny o' the fairies had emigrated from Oirland,
their native land," said an old Irishman, as she
alighted from the bucket, relinquishing, with pre-
tended reluctance, the descent which her aunt with
some precipitancy forbade; the compliment in a
rich brogue, and the flattering twinkle of the eye
had set Jardine wild, but Mrs. Laniston had
laughed pleasantly, and had descanted elaborately,
after they were in the stage once more, on the
national gift of blended blarney and poesy that
tips the tongue of an Irishman, of whatever de-
gree, wherever found.

Now all was changed. Strangers were fellow-
travellers. Placed with Mrs. Laniston on the
back seat of the " hack," the young ladies had re-
lapsed into the inexpressive, sedate demeanour
which they assumed so easily when subjected to the
gaze of the outside world. It might have been
different, thought Jardine, if only Lloyd — who had
unluckily acquired a quasi acquaintance — had been
added to the family party.

The person who thus reconciled Mr. Jardine to

\The Windfall

the fact of his creation and appearance on this
occasion was himself disposed to take little note
of the personnel and conditions of his environment.
He was a tall, portly man, with a strong, hand-
some, rather round, face, a florid complexion, and
round, somewhat staring, eyes; middle-aged,
soberly dressed, and extremely reticent. Beyond
an undeveloped feint of a bow to the assemblage in
the hack when he entered the vehicle, he accorded
none of them a moment's notice. He had the
front seat beside the driver; each of the other two
seats held three passengers, Jardine being be-
tween Lloyd and Laniston, and controlling the
very scanty conversation, taking the word when-
ever an observation was ventured by either. This
line of tactics greatly nettled Frank, who, being un-
able to appropriately return it in kind, relapsed into
a marked silence. Lloyd was apparently not aware
of its significance, for he responded pleasantly,
though monosyllabically, but indeed Jardine per-
mitted nothing more.

When they reached the foot of the mountain,
however, and the driver paused to breathe the
horses, the men alighting to lessen the burden for
the steep ascent, the stranger, who had presum-
ably been profiting by the platitudes with which
Mr. Jardine had beguiled the journey, did not
select his company as solace in the long, stiff tramp.
On the contrary he attached himself to Lloyd, and
together they were soon well in advance of the
straining team, while Frank and Jardine walked

The Windfall

on either side of the vehicle and talked to the
ladies over the high wheels. Here, out of sight
and beyond the participation of the mere outsiders,
Mr. Jardine was pleased to unbend, and be most
affable and entertaining, for he did not include in
the scheme of creation such objects as the driver
— the mere furniture of life — a stalwart young
mountaineer, walking nimbly beside his team, hold-
ing the reins in his hand, and calling out admoni-
tions and encouragements. As he could not, a-foot,
use the brake Frank found occupation and utility
in " scotching " the wheels with a big stone, or
locking them with the chain, generally used to im-
pede a too rapid descent, whenever the team was
halted on the steep acclivity for a few minutes of
breathing space.

Lucia, with her quick faculties, was well-fitted
for a duplicate mental process. She smiled ap-
propriately when Jardine made his neat little
points of mirth, or nodded serious acquiescence,
when his remarks seemed of weight. In reality
she gave him only the most superficial attention,
barely enough to discern the trend of his talk.
Her interest was concentrated on the two pedes-
trians ahead, and once more she wondered how
the showman should look such a gentleman. The
road curved and doubled in innumerable turns to
evade slants impossible to the straining horses.
Looking upward one could see it here and there
in the breaks of the thinning foliage, suggesting
unwound coils of brown ribbon. The wind came

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The Windfall

fresh and free, laden with the sweet dank odours
of the fallen leaves, the exquisite freshness of the
mountain heights, and all the bouquet and tang
of the wayside herbage. It brought the words of
the two pedestrians, now passing them on a higher
level, and visible above a mass of broken rock.

" Late in the season to visit the mountain re-
sorts," the elder man observed.

;' They are usually closed by this time," Lloyd
politely responded.

" I suppose the yellow fever in the South de-
tains their patrons."

Then they both trudged silently on.

The horses were once more urged forward;
in their improved speed Jardine and Frank both
fell behind. The driver, who had no possibility of
comprehending the many finical delicacies which
racked Mr. Jardine's prepossessions, kept up the
pace till he had passed the two passengers on
ahead, and when next he paused in the shade to
rest, the stanch team, sweating at every pore, they
presently overtook in turn the stationary vehicle,
and stoutly marched past, without a word or glance
for the occupants.

" Fine water at these springs? " suggested the
stranger.

" So I hear, but I am new to the placed—never
was here before," Lloyd replied.

His fine figure was especially marked, the per-
fection of strength and symmetry, as he went
swinging past, his hands in the pockets of

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The Windfall

his light fawn-tinted suit, his hat tipped slightly
over his eyes, a spray of the jewel-weed, which he
had caught up by the wayside, in his buttonhole,
keeping step with his portly companion, who was
content to pound over the ground anyhow, re-
gardless of grace, as a man of his weight must
needs be.

Jardine, all blown, and panting, and eager from
his hasty pull after the hack — he and Frank had
sought to shorten the distance by a cross-cut
through from one curve to another, and hindered
by brambles and obstructed by boulders, had found
it hard travelling — had noticed, too, the figures
on ahead, and had heard the words as the wind
wafted to him the casual talk. He had taken off
his hat, and was wiping the traces of his exertion
from his brow with his fine white cambric hand-
kerchief.

From time to time the elder stranger fixed the
eyes of a very close and keen observation on his
companion. He was evidently interested, even
inquisitive.

" You hardly look as if you need the waters for
your health, sir," he said.

" I am particularly fit, just now," said Lloyd.
But he made no advances to gratify the curiosity
of his new acquaintance. His reserve struck Jar-
dine with a peculiarly sinister suggestion. Did
the showman fear this stranger, and why? He
remembered his own conclusion, that the street
carnival had been involved in the sale of the moon-

322

The Windfall

shine whisky and that the manager as representa-
tive was personally liable. A new fear fell upon
him like a thunderbolt This stranger was doubt-
less a detective, an emissary of the revenue depart-
ment, who was tracking and shadowing this man
till he had grounds sufficient for the arrest. And
Frank Laniston — the callow fool! — had brought
upon him, upon his own family so ill-flavoured
and derogatory an association. Nothing had su-
pervened like this — the detective might arrest the
creature at any moment, and had the authority to
call on him, and Laniston, and the driver as a
posse comitatus to assist him in apprehending and
securing his prisoner. What else could bring a
man of this type here, at this season, an evident
stranger to the locality, when the sojourners of the
Spa had flitted home, and business was booming
in the cities, and only a few old habitues of the
place, a mere handful, lingered, extending the
summer, to avoid the yellow fever in the South.

As these thoughts surged through Jardine's
mind he followed the vehicle with so disordered
and exhausted a step, although he was of a stanch,
wiry, and tough physique, that Mrs. Laniston called
out to him, inviting him to ride for a while, saying
there was quite a level stretch of road ahead, and
the additional weight would not harass the horses
here. He so far collected his faculties as to ex-
press his thanks, and protest his comfortable state,
and then fell back to contemplate the horrible pos-
sibility. Good God ! what would people say ! In

The Windfall

what fantastic guise would they imagine he dis-
posed of himself, to come into such a plight. He,
too, kept an eye on the two figures in advance, and
he gave strict heed to their words, as in detached
fragments they floated back.

Evidently Lloyd thought a counter-query was in
order.

" They say the waters have wonderful medicinal
qualities. Do you expect to take them? "

" Me — no, no, sir. No, indeed. I am here on
a piece of business, important business. Out of
the way place."

He seemed not only to Jardine, but to Lloyd,
to cast a singularly sharp and wary eye upon the
figure at his side. In fact he was obviously scan-
ning the contour of the showman's face for some
moments, when he suddenly said:

"If it is not an impertinence, sir, may I ask
your motive in visiting New Helvetia ? "

" Business, too, in a way," said Lloyd. " I am
a coach for that young gentleman beside the
hack."

"The classics?" the stranger asked respect-
fully.

" Oh, Lord, no ! " poor Lloyd burst out explo-
sively. " Excuse me, but Fm an athletic coach.
He wants to train down for the gridiron — and he
needs it, too — going all to fat."

Once more the long keen scrutiny, from which!
Lloyd visibly winced; his cheeks reddened; his
hot, hunted eyes gazed straight ahead; his step

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The Windfall

flagged. Nevertheless he held his ground and Kept
his self-control.

"And is this coaching your regular profes-
sion ? " the inquisitive stranger persisted.

" I have no regular profession," Lloyd hesi-
tated. Then, gathering his nerve with a mighty
effort, he boldly risked absolute candour. " I have
done many stunts in the athletic line. Performed

in circuses and shows; sung a little, too " with

a wry contortion of his perfectly chiselled lips, for
he knew what good music is, and he loved it. " But
lately I have been trying to make some money on
my own account. I have been the manager of a
street fair "

"Oh, fool, fool, fool!" Jardine apostrophised
him, between set teeth.

" A good, clean show it was," continued Lloyd,
"some unparalleled attractions; finest high dive
I ever saw. But we went to pieces here — got
stranded — and "

The wind carried away the words, and as Jar-
dine, still muttering, " Fool — fool," looked up, he
saw the tall, portly figure stop short, lean forward,
and clutch the manager excitedly by the arm. The
next moment the foliage intervened. Suddenly
there rose on the air Lloyd's voice, pitched high,
in wild agitated exclamations, and the deep, steady,
bass tones of the stranger. Then was silence, and
the forests received them, and the tourists below
saw and heard no more.

325

CHAPTER XV

TO Jardine's infinite relief these two of his
fellow-travellers did not reappear. Lloyd
evidently had had the grace not to resist
to the extreme of coercion, and thus had spared
the ladies, and indeed Mr. Jardine's own delicate
sensibilities, the indignity of being even remotely
concerned in so sordid a scene. He hardly won-
dered whither they had gone, when the hack, with
Frank and himself once more seated within with
the ladies, rattled up to the door of the hotel at
the New Helvetia Springs, for the officer would
naturally be expected to hurry his prisoner to some
wayside log cabin, and there await transportation
to Colbury. It would have been a needless ex-
pense, as well as a gratuitous affront to the ladies
and gentlemen at New Helvetia, to introduce
amongst them so offensive a personality as a Fed-
eral prisoner.

The wide piazzas surrounding the hotel and
overlooking a craggy precipice and a vast expanse
of mountain landscape seemed spacious, rather
than deserted. A group of ladies, mostly elderly,
handsomely gowned, though accoutred with little
knitted shawls, and here and there a " fascinator,"
against the chill, rare air of the evening, sat in
rocking-chairs, surveyed the majestic prospect, and

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The Windfall

talked of many things, contentedly awaiting the
white frost which should set them free and fleeing
from the mountains. Many doors, already illu-
mined with lamplight, stood open, casting great
parallelograms of golden radiance on the shadowy
floor without. No sign of the habitation of man,
not a spark betokening a lamp-lit window or a
glowing hearth, showed in all the stretches of
wooded ranges, with dark and sombre valleys be-
tween, barely distinguishable now, with a river
here, and a silent presence of mist there, and a
sense of awful solemnity and infinite loneliness
brooding over all. Perhaps the impressive and
austere aspect of nature without rendered the fire
of hickory logs, burning on the broad hearth of
the large office, of so genial and friendly a sugges-
tion. Before it a num*ber of great rocking-chairs
stood ranged in a semicircle, and here, too, sat
guests, much at their ease. It was a coign of
vantage from which one could observe all that
went on in the great deserted hotel — the clerk at
the desk was on the remote side of the spacious
apartment and the fireside group need not be ham-
pered by the very inconsiderable business that he
was called upon to transact in these dull days, out
of season. But the main staircase, a large pre-
tentious structure of double flights, was in full
view, and everyone coming and going paused for
a word. The two intersecting hallways met in
the office; the great bay window, formed by the
ground floor of the tower, was contrived at one

327

The Windfall

corner of this apartment, and, overlooking the
finest prospect to be seen for many a mile, was al-
ways occupied — by loiterers at gaze in the morn-
ings with some trifling work of crochet or batten-
berg, and by a table of bridge at night. A pleasant
place, a peaceful haven — and Jardine looked un-
wontedly benign and condescending as he received
his key at the counter from the clerk, and re-
sponded affably to that functionary's " Glad to see
you back, Mr. Jardine."

The hotel at New Helvetia had an effect of
palatial dimensions in its wide, unpeopled, vacant
expanses in the shrunken state of its patronage.
The immense logs, flying long, broad pennants of
red and yellow flames, and supported by glittering
old-fashioned brass andirons, sent a rich illumina-
tion far down the spaces of the big dining-room.
The glossy hard-wood floor glistening in the sheen
gave a suggestion of expense quite spurious, for
there was little other timber available in the build-
ing of New Helvetia. A few round tables were
set near the genial glow and the high white-painted
mantelpiece. The other tables had been removed,
and there was a most comfortable sense of absolute
monarchical possession in having such vast apart-
ments at one's own disposal. There was a perva-
sive atmosphere of privacy, of seclusion. The
place was difficult of access, and the usual touring
population had never found it out. Year after
year the same high-grade patrons came and went;
their fathers, and in some instances their grand-

328

The Windfall

fathers, in days agone, had likewise flitted to and
fro, and drank the waters, and danced in the
ballroom, and flirted on the piazzas, and played at
the lawn sports and the games of cards fashionable
in their time. There were white-haired couples
in the dining-room this evening who had turned
each other's heads, blonde or auburn then, on the
moon-lit verandah there, or beside the spring of
magic beneficence, or strolling beneath the trees
of the grove that could have shown many rings of
added girth and many feet of lengthened growth
since those enchanted hours.

It was a decorous, pleasant scene, almost home-
like, yet with an agreeable community geniality
and informality, as now and again groups at table
exchanged comments with other groups half across
the room. It might well have been a shock to Mr.
Jardine strolling in to tea, freshly attired, thankful
to be once more in his accustomed niche, sur-
rounded by " nobility, and tranquillity, burgomas-
ters, and great one-yers," even if the sight had in-
volved no other associations, to perceive at one of
the tables, sitting in this bland glamour of firelight
and mellow lamplight, and the radiance of the
moon which poured in through one of the long
uncurtained windows, the two strangers, erst his
fellow-travellers, whom he fancied he had quitted
forever in the ascent of the mountain. Both were
freshly groomed, quiet, and gentlemanly of de-
meanour, sustaining without show of consciousness
the covert observation of the other occupants of

329

The Windfall

the room, who were all mutually acquainted, even
to the earliest sprout and the latest twig of their
respective family trees. It was naturally a point
of speculation what could have brought these two
strangers, thus out of season, to the remote resort
of the New Helvetia Springs.

One glance at Lloyd's face and Jardine's keen
perceptions were satisfied that he had experienced
some great excitement, some nervous shock, an
agitation from which he had hardly yet recov-
ered. His companion's aspect was unchanged,
placid, powerful, but otherwise null of facial
expression.

Jardine hesitated, his hand still on the knob of
the door. The head waiter had briskly crossed
the shining floor, with a flourish drew out Jar-
dine's accustomed chair at a table near the fire, and
stood blandly awaiting his patron. Jardine hardly
heeded. He was formulating in his mind such
an explanation of his suspicions as it might be con-
sistent with prudence to detail to young Laniston —
a warning, lest he continue even for an evening,
an hour, this derogatory association — or would it
not be better to remonstrate plainly with the officer
on the indecorum of his course in bringing such
an association upon respectable, unsuspicious
people?

The choice did not long remain possible to him.
A side door opened suddenly and Frank Laniston,
fresh, roseate, all handsomely bedight, for he was
of the type that loves and beseems fine clothes,

330

The Windfall

entered with an elastic step, and a gay greeting as
he passed the table of the strangers.

" Got here, eh — all in one piece, I see — lost
you on the road," and then he took his seat at his
own table, bowing and smiling rosily to the greet-
ings he encountered, and, with a half audible
sigh of pleasant anticipation, he unfolded his
napkin.

" Fi-i-ne." He exclaimed presently, in the in-
terval, while his order was filled, replying to an
inquiry from across the fireplace as to the outing
to Colbury.

Jardine, once again coerced by circumstances,
could only traverse the room to his waiting chair,
and respond with his usual sedate and appropriate
urbanity to the questions as to his enjoyment of
the excursion. He kept a furtive, but stern, eye
on the strangers, with little result, save that he
observed that the portly man ate a somewhat elabo-
rate and well-selected meal almost in absolute
silence, giving his whole attention to the matter in
hand. Lloyd, on the contrary, ate little, and was
as silent. He seemed distrait, perturbed, preoc-
cupied; now gazing drearily into the flashing
flames, and once, for a long interval, with lifted
face watching the beams from the unseen moon,
falling through the window, the rays all differen-
tiated like the fibres of a glittering skein, the more
distinct because of the background of the dark
foliage of a great oak without.

When a sudden alert attentiveness usurped this

The Windfall

apathy of reverie, Jardine, too, looked up sharply.
Lucia Laniston was entering the room. The
unique character of her beautiful face, the poetic,
indescribable charm of her eyes, the high intelli-
gence and nobility of sentiment that her presence
expressed, despite her extreme youth, all seemed
curiously independent of fashion and superior to
its behests. She might have been appropriately
garbed in some severely simple and classic design,
apart from the modiste's creation, exclusively her
own. But naught was further from her desire —
naught could more definitely accord with the pre-
vailing mode than the costumes she affected. As
she came forward the long, straight folds of her
chiffon gown, worn over a shining silk of the same
tint, accented her height and her slenderness; the
gauzy material was of a sage green, embroidered
here and there with a pattern of a Persian design
in terra-cotta, and darker green and a thread of
gold; it had sleeves to the elbow, but was cut low
and square over a beautifully modelled, but some-
what thin, neck, and, in what she called " the
region of the bones," was a delicate little necklace
of five emeralds placed at intervals on an almost
Invisible chain whereon glimmered here and there
a very small and very white diamond. Her soft
light-brown hair was dressed high in fluffy puffs,
and as she paused, waiting a moment and glancing
over her shoulder, her cousin Ruth came in, her
dress duplicating this costume in lilac.

To Jardine's consternation, as they took their

332

The Windfall

seats, Lloyd gravely and circumspectly bowed to
both. After they had ceremoniously returned the
salutation, Jardine observed that each cast a swift,
searching glance at Lloyd. They, too, saw that
which had not been in his face before. Mrs. Lanis-
ton now joined the party, deceptively arrayed in
what she called her " old black Chantilly," which
seemed a very fine lace dress as long as its wear
and tear were obliterated by the black satin be-
neath, but a sorry sight it might have been over
white silk, which it had been designed to cover
in its palmy days. It was quite good enough for
New Helvetia, out of season, and, with the twinkle
of a diamond lace-pin, and the flutter of a fan
of inlaid pearl, not even her -nearest neighbours
knew how they had been cozened of a toilette of
distinction. For it was rather a point at New
Helvetia to maintain all the flattering delusions
of a sojourn of pleasure and free will, rather than
an enforced detention, and all the formalities of
dressing, and dancing, and playing tenpins, and
cards, and tennis were continued as long as the
covey of summer birds could muster the numbers
to sustain the diversion. Jardine suddenly be-
thought himself of this, and not to be forestalled
anew he leaned backward and touched Frank
Laniston, as he sat at the next table. Frank
turned instantly, and leaned slightly to one side
to hear the communication, made in a very low
tone under Mrs. Laniston's voluble description of
her experiences addressed to the occupants of the

333

The Windfall

neighbouring table on the left — charming ride —
somewhat fatigued — quaint little town — enjoyed
the fair — how the storm must have frightened you,
lightning terrific at such an altitude — must have
been terrible — glad to escape it

" Frank," said Jardine seriously, " for God's
sake let's have no dancing this evening, no
german "

Frank's patience had worn well, but it had now
waxed thin. He was no longer tucked up under
Jardine's arm, so to speak, and off on their travels.
New Helvetia, familiar to him since infancy, was
like home, and he felt independent. He was not
" looking for a row " with anybody, but, if one
were forced upon him, there was no longer an
obligatory association — there was elbow-room
here — Jardine and he could move apart, each go-
ing his own way without embarrassment, or an
open esclandre.

" You needn't adjure me," he said with spirit.
" I am too tired to put one foot before the other.
/ don't want to dance."

" But don't let the others " Jardine began.

Frank Laniston had his own theories of the
becoming. He had thought it well enough that
Jardine, in escorting the young ladies under cir-
cumstances so unusual, should have special solici-
tude touching the decorous and the appropriate.
But he felt, if he might venture to criticise anyone
so assertively au fait, that Jardine was not infallible
in his management, as the swing episode intimated,

334

The Windfall

that he was prone to magnify any awkward little
contretemps, and by much pother make something
out of nothing. A man with feminine relatives
is susceptible to a certain sensitiveness in their be-
half, impossible for a man not so connected to
appreciate. In Mr. Jardine's persuasions concern-
ing these matters of propriety he overlooked one
point — that he, himself, committed a solecism in
mentioning them to Frank in this connection. The
mere discussion was an offence in young Laniston's
estimation. He would not longer suffer it.

" You are afraid that Lloyd, my coach, might
get into the german — say as a rover? " he asked,
with the infinitely exasperating, callow sarcasm,
his big white strong teeth gleaming in his rosy
square-jawed face. " Why, I don't know whether
he can dance the german at all. I should say that
a tight-rope fandango was more in his line."

Jardine turned without another word, and at
all the white-draped tables the amicable plying of
knife and fork continued, unaware of this provo-
cation to a breach of the peace.

After tea Jardine lighted his cigar at the counter
in the office and strolled out on the side piazza,
puffing at it in a very ill frame of mind. He
needed its solace, and the sedative influence to his
nerves, after the vexatious incidents of the even-
ing, and the perplexity that beset him as to how
he should proceed — or indeed, with no seconding
from this young cub, whose position as a near
relative of the ladies authorised interference, what

335

The Windfall

could he do? Of course Jardine realised that his
solicitude in these troublous complications was en-
tirely on Lucia's account, but he said to himself
that any ladies of his acquaintance placed in a posi-
tion so menacing to their dignity, with such inade-
quate protection as the shallow-pated Frank Lanis-
ton could afford, had a claim on his good offices to
spare them a discreditable episode.

He paced to and fro in the chill air, pulling
hard at his cigar and glancing now at its light
wreaths of smoke, and now at the illuminated disk
of the moon, .riding high above the infinite soli-
tudes of the mountains. He heard the wind stir
in the leaves far below on the slope; he marked
how the great ranges against the horizon fended
off the world; he listened to the impetuous dash
of the mountain torrent in the ravine leaping down
the rocky abysses on its way to the valley. But
as yet there was no flicker of light from the win-
dows of the ballroom, a long, low building in the
extremity of the west wing, remote from the more
inhabited portion of the hotel that the sound of
revelry should not reach the old, the invalids, the
slumberers in the bedrooms. There was no vibra-
tion of the tuning of the fiddles or banjos, for the
regular band had gone, and the music of an humble
sort was furnished by several of the negro waiters,
musically endowed and hired for the occasion. It
seemed really as if the guests might not intend to
dance to-night, their limited number being so re-
duced by the defection of the exhausted excursion-

336

rThe Windfall

ists. From the front piazza, which extended along
the whole facade of the building, came the sound
of joyous young voices, and it occurred to Jardine
that perhaps the youthful element might content
themselves with promenading to and fro in the
moonlight till the increasing chill of the air should
drive them within to the fire blazing so ruddily on
the broad hearth of the office.

He walked to the corner and stood for a mo-
ment, his cigar in his hand, casting his eye along
the length of the piazza. It was much as he had
expected. In the white sheen of the moon a young
couple here and there slowly strolled, idly chatting.
The columns supporting the roof were duplicated
in shadowy pilasters that extended the effect of
the colonnade. The bare boughs of a locust tree,
always the earliest denuded by the autumnal blasts,
were drawn on a clear space on the floor with the
distinctness of a line engraving, and the dense foli-
age of a great oak close by cast a deeper gloom
within the railing because of the clear lustre that
elsewhere suffused mountain and valley, and
sward and pillared portico. The parallelograms
of light earlier cast on the floor from the lamp-lit
windows and doors were now annulled by the lunar
brilliancy, obliterated. Indeed he might scarcely
have discerned from where he stood the position
of the office door had not the light, elegant form
of Lucia Laniston with its lily-like suggestions,
suddenly issued from it, one hand holding up
the sheer draperies of her dress, the other furling

337

The Windfall

her fan of dark green ostrich tips. His heart
throbbed at the sight of her; then he stood as one
petrified.

For a man, who was leaning smoking against
one of the pillars, suddenly threw his cigar over
the balustrade into the lawn, and with perfect as-
surance approached and accosted her as she stood
glancing about in loitering doubt.

" Miss Laniston," Jardine heard the words, for
Lloyd's enunciation was very distinct and his voice
carried well, "you spoke to me very kindly last
evening — and I should like to tell you about some-
thing, sad and wrong and irrevocable in the past,
and a very strange thing that has befallen me to-
day and changed all my prospects."

Jardine woke to sudden life. He strode along
the piazza and joined the two before the young
lady had framed her reply.

" Good-evening, Miss Laniston," he said im-
periously, taking no notice of the presence of
Lloyd ; " I hope that you are not too fatigued for
a stroll on the piazza to enjoy this balmy air. Let
me show you a charming view of the moonlight
on the cascade. The stream has risen so since the
storm that you can see the falls from the end of
the piazza at the west wing."

He could not believe his ears. " Later, per-
haps— thank you very much — but just now I am
engaged."

She summoned Lloyd with a glance, and catch-
ing up the fleecy overdress with one jewelled hand,

33?

The Windfall

while the silken skirt below shimmered blue and
shoaled green in the moonlight as it trailed, she
paced slowly along with him in the opposite direc-
tion, and Jardine noted the sympathetic cadence in
her voice as she invited the colloquy with a question.

Jardine was furious, on fire, not from jealousy,
for he could not stoop to recognise rivalry from
this quarter, but with the sense of the subjection of
the highly placed and finely endowed woman whom
he loved to ignoble association, which because of
her youth and inexperience she knew not how to
discern and repel, and from which by reason of
the incompetence of her guardians and his own lack
of authority she was altogether unprotected. He
would not be still — he would no longer supinely
submit. He turned into the office of the hotel
animated with an intention that would brook
neither denial nor delay.

In the summer this large apartment was almost
entirely relinquished to business and to the mascu-
line guests who were wont to wait here for the dis-
tribution of the mail, to read the in-coming news-
papers, to discuss the phases of politics and public
events they suggested, and pending all to smoke
interminably. Though the number of habitues
was so wofully decreased the autumn wrought an
added cheer in the presence of great, alluring,
genial fires and the change of feminine intrusion.
Now it was almost given over to the ladies, but
neither politics nor tobacco had been tabooed.
Games of hazard for stakes had always sought

339

The Windfall

more secluded quarters, and naught could better
comport with the sentiment of the refining influ-
ences of woman's presence than the game of chess
at which two elderly worthies sat, their eyes fixed
on the board, as motionless as if they had been
stricken into stone. A group of four ladies and
gentlemen were deep in the allurements of bridge
at the table in the bay window. Several guests
languidly swayed in rocking-chairs before the fire,
aimlessly chatting. Among these was Mrs. Lanis-
ton cutting the leaves of a new magazine and
theorising ably on the perishable impression of
periodical literature. Frank Laniston was hooked
on by the elbows to the counter, while he gazed up
the staircase ever and anon, expecting the descent
of a very young lady whose mamma had required
her to procure her long red cloth coat before she
ventured out with a party bound for the spring.
The elderly stranger, fraternising with no one, had
deliberately lighted a cigar after observing that
the practice of smoking here was permitted,
and sat in the chimney corner, very much at home,
composed, observant, evidently enjoying the luxury
of the fire and satisfied with his surroundings. He
took his cigar from his lips and fixed his great,
shiny, hazel eyes on Jardine with very much the
air of being interrupted, before the stare of sur-
prise effaced every other expression of his large,
handsome florid face.

" I want to know what you mean by this? " Jar-
jdine said without preamble or disguise. His voice

340

The Windfall

was tense and low, but so obviously freighted
with passion that the bridge players paused in
amaze.

" What — what?" sputtered the portly guest,
seeming to collect himself with difficulty, and not
till Jardine had repeated the question was he able
to speak coherently. " Mean by what, my good
sir?"

"Mean by letting that fellow go at large?"
Jardine hissed out. He stood erect at a little dis-
tance leaning on the high back of one of the vacant
rocking-chairs, and as his hands now and again
quivered, responsive to the surge of excitement
in his mind, the chair swayed slightly, and then
was still again.

The portly guest stared with unavailing intent-
ness, as if he sought with the physical eye to dis-
cern the mystery. Then he looked around at the
group as if they, knowing Jardine, might be able
to explain him. But they remained silent in blank
astonishment; even the automata of the chess table
turned dismayed and startled faces, and the knights
and castles and pawns had surcease of their
schemings for the nonce.

"What fellow?" gasped the stranger, seeming
to doubt his senses. He burnt his fingers with
the lighted end of his cigar in inadvertent hand-
ling, and he let it fall to the hearth unheeded.

" That fellow Lloyd — what do you mean by
letting him go at large?" Jardine reiterated his
question.

341

The Windfall

" My God, sir — he is perfectly sane — do you
suppose that / am his keeper? "

" No, I do not — I most certainly do not sup-
pose that you are any such thing," Jardine replied
with a significance not to be mistaken.

The portly stranger was recovering his com-
posure. Under other circumstances he might
have thought that Jardine was himself mentally
unbalanced, but he had already noted him on the
journey that day with the keen observation that
little escaped, and he was aware that there must
needs be other methods of accounting for his
demonstration.

" I will tell you what I suppose that you and he
are," Jardine declared. He had utterly lost his
own self-control — he was tingling with the long-
repressed irritation, vented at last and utterly be-
yond his power to check.

" Let me warn you, sir," said the newcomer,
with a certain menacing dignity in his look, " how
you dare asperse either that gentleman or myself."
Then with a sudden, sinister, chuckling laugh, " He
is more than capable physically of resenting any
injury, and I tell you now that if you slander me I
will have the law of you."

This utterance stirred the group.

" Permit me to remind you, Mr. Jardine, that
ladies are present, and that this violence, now and
here, is unbecoming," one of the chess players
observed. He was an ancient bachelor and so-
licitous on the subject of the claims to delicacy of

342

The Windfall

the fair sex. He thought this suggestion would
induce the feminine members of the group to retire,
when the men could have their difference out as
best pleased them. But every woman sat immova-
ble, absorbed, interested in the outcome. They
had not achieved their enlarged liberties for
naught. Not a soul thought of retiring from the
scene — if ever they had known how to faint they
had forgotten the accomplishment.

There was not an appreciable pause and the
crisis was acute. One of the bridge players rose
to the occasion, while the others stared petrified
and round-eyed. He was a tall, lank, blond gentle-
man, bald and clean-shaven. " I think, Mr. Jar-
dine, you must be under some mistake." His
hand in the game was a dummy, and already lay
exposed upon the board while the other players
still clutched their cards tight. He approached
Jardine thinking that by some miracle he might be
intoxicated, and keenly eyed him as he spoke.
" This gentleman — both, I am sure, are strangers
to us all. I beg — in fact, I insist that you say no
more."

" Then, let him tell us who he is," Jardine per-
sisted with a vehemence that amazed the coterie,
" and why he has this Lloyd in his custody."

" My good sir, let me recommend you to dis-
cipline your tongue," said the stranger hotly, " or
I warn you again that it will get you into trouble."

Jardine's expression of disdainful contempt was
so definite that it constrained a reply.

343

The Windfall

" I never anticipated such a * hold up ' as this,
I am sure," the portly guest remarked satirically.
"We are strangers to all present, and I can't
imagine why anyone here should take such a
vital interest in us — flattering, very, but most

uncommon."

" I desire you to observe," said one of the gentle-
men who had been idly swaying in a rocking-chair,
aimlessly chatting, till stricken motionless and
dumb with amazement, " I desire you to observe
that this intrusive interest in your personal affairs
is manifested by only one individual. We do not
ask nor desire to know anything concerning them."

There was a general civil murmur of unanimity.

" I assure you we have nothing to conceal," the
stranger said with a sort of large, jocular scorn.
" I am a lawyer — a member of the Glaston Bar.
My name is George Conway Dalton — here is my
professional card," he handed it to the blond bald
bridge player, who received it reluctantly and
civilly avoided looking at it. "I came here to
ask Mr. Lloyd to execute a power of attorney to
enable me to act in some property interests in
which I have already been of counsel, and to ac-
quaint him with the fact that he is a beneficiary
under the will of a relative from whom he ex-
pected to receive nothing."

344

CHAPTER XVI

JARDINE, after one moment of stultified
amaze, felt as if the floor were sinking
beneath his feet. In the sudden revulsion
of his rage his head whirled, and he saw the room
and the people go round and round in concentric
circles. But for the chair he grasped he might
have fallen. He was grateful that the interest
produced by the announcement so superseded the
surprise which his demonstration had occasioned
that for a time he escaped notice, and was afforded
an interval for the recovery of his composure.

" I am well acquainted in Glaston," one of the
coterie observed. " I have never had the pleasure
of meeting you there, Mr. Dalton, but I have often
heard of you from my relatives, the Rickson family.
Happy to make your acquaintance," and he offered
his hand.

Some further informal introductions and aton-
ing handshaking ensued with the discovery of
mutual friends, all a trifle conscious and awkward,
however, and there was a very general feeling of
relief when Mrs. Laniston, perceiving the " lapse
into barbarism," as she called it, at an end, broke
into vivacious comments with her tactful percep-
tion of the least nettling phase of the disclosure.

" How perfectly delightful — such a romantic
345;

The Windfall

incident — an unexpected legacy — a windfall. But
— since from the nature of the case it must be to
a degree public — may I ask were not you two
strangers when you met to-day in the stage? "

Mr. Dalton, in younger and slimmer years
might have been an acceptable " ladies' man." He
beamed with most responsive urbanity upon Mrs.
Laniston, and was quite willing to permit a little
harmless gossip to annul the impression of the
violent methods by which the announcement had
been elicited.

" I had not the most remote idea that he was
the legatee. I had been looking for him — adver-
tising in fact in every medium that I thought might
meet his eye for the last four months. I heard
by an accident that he was in Colbury as the man-
ager of a little street fair."

There was a distinct sensation among the heavy-
weights, financial and social, upon this mention.
A sort of dismayed surprise usurped the genial
satisfaction in more than one face in the coterie.
Mr. Dalton seemed rather to rejoice in the effect
he produced, to shatter thus their well-bred nerves.
He looked around the circle, expansively smiling,
before he went on : " When the train came in this
morning I found that the Fair had collapsed,
closed, and departed. Not disposed to a wild-
goose chase I sent telegrams in every direction
which I thought he might take. I concluded to
await results, and preferred a sojourn at the
Springs to the little town."

346

The Windfall

" The subtleties of the professional legal mind
are past fathoming, I know," said Mrs. Laniston.
" But I cannot understand by what keen insight,
by what unclassified faculty of discrimination you
could say to yourself as you toiled up the moun-
tain beside an absolute^ stranger * This is the lega-
tee I am hunting for.' Why, among your fellow-
travellers, did you select this Mr. Lloyd, instead of
Mr. Jardine or my son Francis Laniston ? "

Mr. Dalton twinkled appreciatively as he lis-
tened to this. " I have a mind to appropriate
those compliments, madam — you have doubtless
heard that the profession is not overscrupulous in
taking advantage of a concession. But the fact is
that the young gentleman's extraordinary personal
appearance first gave me a clue to his identity.
His mother took a fifteen thousand dollar prize in
an international beauty show."

" Oh," ejaculated Mrs. Laniston, fairly taken
aback. She had had it vaguely in her mind that
the manager was not really what he seemed, and
was about to protest that she had had the dis-
crimination to discern this from the first, inquir-
ing who was " that distinguished-looking young
gentleman."

Mr. Jardine had thrown himself into the rock-
ing-chair on which he had been leaning, feeling
that he had done all that he could, more than his
unfounded suspicions justified, and seeking to re-
cover himself of his excitement and nervous strain.
At this disclosure of the showman's antecedents he

347

The Windfall

raised his eyebrows in sarcastic disdain. After all
the Lanistons were free agents, and if they de-
liberately chose association of this type — why, they
were not for him nor he for them.

Mrs. Laniston vaguely lifted her eyes to the
window opening on the verandah; to see Jardine
not in attendance on Lucia gave her an unwonted
sense of something awry, but the next moment the
interest of the gossip annulled this impression, and
she was listening to Mr. Dalton, who, having ex-
hausted his relish of the survey of the flinching
group, went on with animation.

" And she was as good as she was pretty — which
is saying a very great deal ! She provided for her
aged parents permanently out of her prize money,
sent a consumptive brother to a hospital where he
was cured, to be drowned afterward on an ocean
voyage. I fancy she bought much fine dry goods
and frippery; in effect she distributed the sum in a
year or so, contentedly relying on her slender sal-
ary as a dancer — they tell me that despite her
beauty and grace she was an indifferent dancer — .
till she met this young fellow's father, who
straightway married her."

Mr. Dalton had reached the limit of his capacity
it would seem to sustain the public interest. So
genteel a circle was not entertained by a biography
of this sordid character. The bridge party, albeit
with a civil effect of listening, had begun to play
out the interrupted hand, though the owner of the
dummy sat sideways in his chair and still turned

The Windfall

an attentive face. Mrs. Laniston, fluttering the
leaves of her magazine, was vaguely disconcerted.
She could hardly be said to have her two charges
in mind in this connection — she had no reason to
think that the young showman would presume to
speak to either of them. Jardine, a contemptuous
satiric smile on his jaded face, sat languidly
listening.

Mr. Dalton, perhaps, had already found a field
at the Bar for his gift of marshalling facts, ap-
proaching with an ever-increasing velocity of sig-
nificance the climax, but a chancellor, or a puisne
judge, or even a jury was better fitted to resist the
shock of sudden surprise than the idle summer
birds in their relaxed mental attitude.

" Now," he continued, " the father was of a
different sort; he was a young man of the very
highest social connections. Moreover, he was tal-
ented, well-behaved, studious, very young — only
in his junior year at college — heart-rending infatu-
ation. His family investigated the facts and when
they found that the marriage was really valid they
cast him off without a moment's hesitation, abso-
lutely, irretrievably. I never shall forget Judge
Lloyd's dismay "

"Judge Lloyd?1' exclaimed several voices in
different keys of sharp surprise.

" You surely don't mean Judge Clarence Jen-
nico Lloyd of Glaston? " said the gentleman who
had connections in that city, and was familiar with
the status of its principal people.

349

The Windfall

" The noted jurist ? — I do ! He was considered
a hard man, but he was a very just one. This hap-
pened in his palmy days, when he was very rich
as well as esteemed far and wide an ornament to
the judiciary. The family could trace a long and
proud descent and they carried their heads very
high. The judge could not tolerate such a mesal-
liance. He persisted in considering the woman a
designing baggage and tried to buy her off. He
bid very high — that was before his financial
reverses."

Mr. Dalton swayed his big head to and fro, his
eyes alight with the fires of reminiscence as the
scenes of nearly thirty years earlier were re-en-
acted in his memory. " And yet from his stand-
point he was quite right. They were very strict
religionists, those Lloyds — Methodists, or Camp-
bellites, or what not — they thought it a mortal sin
to attend even a Shakespearean performance at a
theatre. Judge Lloyd did not know One card from
another — and was proud of the fact. I remem-
ber that once I tried a case in his court that in-
volved a gambling transaction — his cousin Charles
Jennico was of the opposing counsel — but that's
neither here nor there. Judge Lloyd had other
children then — boys and girls — he could not bring
them into such association — he could not justify
such an example."

" Jennico — isn't that a name down your way,
in Louisiana, Mrs. Laniston ? " one of the chess
players suggested.

The Windfall

" I was just thinking," said Mrs. Laniston, her
surprised eyes on the fire, her thin, jewelled fingers
still keeping her place in the magazine. " There
is an inconsiderable plantation called the Jennico
place just beyond the bight of the bayou. The pro-
prietor never lived there. I always understood
that the owner was wealthy — but it is much
neglected and in need of repair."

" It belongs to this fellow now," said the lawyer
comfortably. " What sort of a house is on it, do
you know, madam?"

" Not much of a house — a six-room frame, I
think — there is not much land, but it is of good
quality."

The lawyer, identified with his client's in-
terests, nodded his head, smiling as if in personal
gratification.

" I have some curiosity, Mr. Dalton," said one
of the chess players, a soul dedicated to problems,
" to know how such an unexpected windfall would
affect a man. How did the young fellow receive
the news of his good fortune?"

" Almost stunned at first — dreadfully taken
aback; " the lawyer laughed and then grew grave.

" He had some points besides the money inter-
ests to claim his attention, you see. The danseuse
and her highly bred and refined husband had very
hard luck. Her earnings were poor, and he could
not get employment in any appropriate way on ac-
count of the impression which his marriage gave to
people of position. He was naturally supposed

35*

The Windfall

to be such a man who would make such a marriage.
He tried all sorts of things, unsuited to his training
and traditions. He was a ticket-taker, an advance
agent, doorkeeper — had a classical education and
wrote theatrical advertisements and puffs for news-
papers— had no conception of the dramatic afflatus,
wrote a play or two, heavy as lead, warranted to
fall flat. He succumbed to ill-health, and then his
father, having lost several children — all but this one
and the eldest, Robert — and being much softened,
offered to take this son back, excluding the wife
of course, but paying her a handsome pension ; this
was refused. Time went on; the situation waxed
worse continually; the judge then offered financial
assistance unconditionally. But it came too late;
the son died — presently his wife died also, and the
grandson, then almost grown, doing a * ground-
and-lofty-tumbling turn ' in great glory in a circus
company went his way, chiefly on his head. He
was lost sight of for a time, for Robert Lloyd,
an admirable man and considered to have excel-
lent business judgment, having made several most
fortunate speculations, went beyond his depth, was
caught in the undertow and dragged to ruin, over-
whelming with him Judge Lloyd himself — I never
could understand the tangle of Robert Lloyd's
affairs. In the confusion of the financial wreck no
one remembered this boy — the friends of the fam-
ily thought the outcome well enough. The boy
in his risky vocation must soon break his neck; and
thus the unlucky episode of the beauty-prize winner

352

The Windfall

in the Lloyd family would be definitely terminated.
But, luckily enough it proved, the old gentleman
once saw this grandson. Have you met him — this
young fellow? " he broke off suddenly, addressing
one of the chess players.

" No, I have not," the gentleman responded a
trifle stiffly — street fairs were not in his line.

Mr. Dalton smiled benignly. " The most win-
ning personality — yet with a quiet inherent dignity
all his own, the most disarming amiability — and a
face that you might wander through a hundred
exhibitions of painting and never see equalled for
a certain sort of charm. I don't wonder at
the award for the fifteen thousand dollar prize —
ha, ha, ha ! "

" What is it that the court says when counsel
becomes prolix — Be brief, sir — be brief," sug-
gested Mrs. Laniston, laughing nervously. She
was surprised to find herself eager, expectant.
" Your story is too interesting to bear digressions,
Mr. Dalton."

" Thanks— thanks greatly," Mr. Dalton
beamed.

" Well, the circus roaming around the country
gave an exhibition in the neighbourhood of Charles
Jennico's summer residence near Glaston, where
Judge Lloyd was visiting. He and Jennico were
first cousins, and after his financial reverses the
judge, who was as proud as Lucifer, scarcely went
anywhere else. And this youngster, a man grown
he was then, had the hardihood, or the good feel*

353

The Windfall

ing, or the curiosity — or nobody knows what
actuated him — to deliberately call on the old man.
'* I don't want a thing in the world of you,' he
said. * But I know that my father owed you
much, and I qwe you much for what my father
was to me. I came to pay my respects — to get
the glad hand, that's all.' Judge Lloyd never
opened his lips to me on the subject of this visit,
but he was taken by surprise, the young man being
ushered into the library, and Charles Jennico was
sitting in the bay window — he used to laugh and
cry together when he rehearsed the scene. The
judge, he said, was like a man in a dream at first.
Then he began to beseech this stranger to come and
live with him like a son without conditions and
without restraint. * But I could not become a de-
pendent on you,J the boy said. * It would be
like a robbery of your old age. I have heard of
your financial reverses or I would not have come.
I know that you are broke.' And though he put
it thus bluntly the judge did not wither him with
a look. He said that he had influence — without
depriving himself he could provide the youngster
with respectable employment. ' You have no idea
of my ignorance, grandfather. What you call re-
spectable employment for me would have either to
be a farce or a gratuity. I can do real work, such
as it is, where I am and eat my own bread.' Judge
Lloyd argued that he could secure money for his
education. He had friends who would be glad to
oblige him. ' It would go hard with you to ask

354

The Windfall

a favour for yourself, sir — you shall not sue for
me.' The old gentleman then urged him to con-
sider what he would lose — he should have every
advantage, he should travel. * Grandfather,' he
said, ' I have stood on my head in every capital
of Europe — what I should be tempted to do would
be to stay with you, quiet, resting, for I am fed
up with stir and racket.' The whole thing cap-
tured Charles Jennico's fancy. He said that he
had never expected to hear Judge Lloyd come so
near a confession of arbitrary injustice, as when
he said how cruel had been the past, and how he
feared that he had allowed a subservience to arti-
ficial standards to embitter and impoverish and
shorten the lives of the youth's parents. * You were
just and true from your standpoint,1 the boy
sought to comfort him. * A father has a right
to his son's obedience ' — the old judge used to
repeat this phrase; it justified his course to him-
self. * And yet my father was right, too, from
his standpoint — I can't judge between you. I
don't blame either for what is gone. I would
willingly live with you in my father's place, but I
must make and eat my own bread and play the
man. You made a great mistake about my mother,
though — you never knew my mother. She was
It ! She was the whole team ! She was the Pearl
you threw away, worth all your tribe ! ' And
Judge Lloyd said that he believed it now that he
had seen her son — he wished he had seen her
first. And then the two, as competent fools as

3SS

The Windfall

ever lived, fell on each other's necks and wept and
parted."

"Tut, tut, tut — what a pity," said the bald-
headed bridge player, oblivious of the words of his
partner until she twice repeated, " Shall I lead,
partner," when he caught himself with a galvanic
start and responded, " Pray do."

There was a pause while Mr. Dalton eyed the
fire reflectively, puffing at his cigar, which had
gone out while he talked, requiring to be re-
kindled.

" What so won upon me this afternoon was the
manner in which young Lloyd received the intelli-
gence. He did not seem to remember or care at
first that his financial miseries were now at an
end — although he has been at his wit's end for
money as he told me afterward ; in fact, that he had
not enough to pay for his transportation with the
rest of the troupe or show or carnival or whatever
the organisation is called, and had even tried to
pawn his mother's engagement ring which had been
indeed his grandmother's engagement ring — an
heirloom in Judge Lloyd's family, a thing with a
legend, more or less mythical, I suppose."

Jardine thought of the gems he had seen in the
safe of the hotel in Colbury, but he kept his own
counsel.

" Of course the detail of the circumstances
brought back to him that day of parting, and he
told me that when he had first heard of his grand-
father's death without another word between them

The Windfall

he had deeply regretted his refusal to live witK
him in his father's place. He thought he had
been too sensitive as to his independence — too
afraid of grafting. It would not have been for
long. He could have been the solace of the old
gentleman's reverses and his age. He was wild
that he had denied him aught — the only time that
they had ever seen each other! His grandfather
had been good to him that day, he said. And
there," said Mr. Dalton with a whimsical wave
of his cigar, " I had to wait and postpone the de-
tails of business communications while he leaned
up against a tree in the woods and sobbed like a
child because his grandfather had been good to
him that day when he had offered him — so late —
the boon of a life of precarious dependence in lieu
of his free agency and a certain means of liveli-
hood. I was touched, I must confess, I was very
much touched. He has a rare nature, this-ground-
and-lofty tumbler."

Mr. Dalton had not observed the usual legal
reticence concerning a client's affairs. The nature
of the case, the will and other matters of record,
would give publicity to the mere facts, but he was
solicitous, since the details had of necessity been
elicited here, that the personal character of the
harlequin legatee should be put into evidence, and
receive from all the respect which he felt to be
its due. No better method could he have found to
disseminate the impression he wished to create
than these reminiscences addressed to a symposium

357

The Windfall

*o'f idle gossips. Their craftily titillated interest
kept them still loitering around the fire after the
card and chess tables had been abandoned as the
hour wore late, and when Mrs. Laniston began
to ascend the stairs to her apartment she noted,
glancing back from the landing, that a group of
gentlemen with freshly lighted cigars were draw-
ing closer round the hearth continuing the subject
with its cognate themes.

She had so unusually prolonged her loitering
about the office fire to-night that she found that her
son and daughter had returned from their mild
diversions with the other youth of the place and
were awaiting her coming in her room.

Frank was busy with some boxing gloves and was
directing with a very exacting air precisely how
some stitches should be set in the puffy awkward
bags which had somehow become ripped. His
sister Ruth, with her thimble and waxed thread,
had placed the kerosene lamp and her workbox
on the little table and was patiently repairing the
damages according to his directions to the best of
her ability.

" Ruthie, how close you do put your head to
the lamp-chimney," her mother exclaimed in irrita-
ble warning. " Do be more careful, child. In
another moment you would have singed your
pompadour. Where is Lucia ? "

Ruth lifted the endangered rouleau, stared
around a moment, as if she expected to see her
cousin here. " Why, she came upstairs with

35$

The Windfall

me — " then suggesting, " She must be in our room,
I reckon," went on with her work as before.

Mrs. Laniston, proceeding into the adjoining
apartment, found that it was not lighted, save by
the moon, pouring the white rays through the
windows, the shades being still up, and the shutters
open. Outside was the limitless wilderness of the
mountains, purple and dusky against the light
indeterminate blue of the sky. A few stars, large
and whitely lustrous, scintillated at vast intervals,
but the moon was supreme, and the white mists
in the valleys shimmered with opalescent sugges-
tions of delicate tints. Far away the sudden shrill
snarling cry of a catamount smote the air, then all
was silent save the rush of the torrent in the valley.
For a moment it seemed that no one was in the
room; then Mrs. Laniston perceived that Lucia
was seated, half kneeling, close by the window,
very still, very silent, and she was sure that the girl
had been weeping.

" Want anything? " asked Lucia, in a voice that
yet betrayed tears; then she put her elbows on the
window sill and more deliberately addressed her-
self to the contemplation apparently of the night.

" Lucia — chilly as it is ! What are you doing
at that window? You'll catch your death of
cold."

Lucia in a muffled voice muttered something
about the air being quite balmy, and remarked
that she had been already most of the evening
promenading on the verandah.

3595

The Windfall

" Why," said Mrs. Laniston, stolidly amazed,
" Mr. Jardine was in the office the whole time."

"We are not the Siamese twins," said Lucia
dully.

" Of course not. Who were you with, most of
the time?"

For there still remained at New Helvetia a num-
ber of squires of dames, eminently available for
germans, and verandah promenades, and senti-
mentalisings in the moonlight.

" I was with Mr. Lloyd, all the time." Her
voice quavered as she anticipated the note of sur-
prise, and reprehension, and dismay in Mrs. Lanis-
ton's rejoinder. It sounded instantly.

"Why, Lucia! That showman, Lloyd?"

" I could not very well avoid it — and I didn't
want to avoid it," she said rather doggedly.

Mrs. Laniston had a monition of George Lanis-
ton's ultra particularity In social matters; then she
had a saving recollection of the standing of Judge
Lloyd.

" Oh, poor fellow ! I suppose he wanted to
boast a bit of his legacy. It seems he comes of
good people on his father's side, and has been
remembered in a codicil, or something."

" He did not mention the legacy, except that
he did say as it would make his connections a matter
of newspaper notoriety he did not mind speaking
of them. He said he would not do this ordinarily,
for in a man in his humble business it would seem
boastful, and he declared that he was more proud

360

The Windfall

of his mother, and her generosity, and her strug-
gles, and her courage, and her life of sacrifice in
the care of those dear to her, than of every Lloyd
that ever stepped."

And the proud Miss Laniston burst into tears
• — not the first she had shed that night over the
pathos of the ci-devant dancer's woes.

" Why, Lucia," Mrs. Laniston exclaimed, ir-
ritably, "I am surprised that you should be so
weak."

Lucia had no desire to be strong; she continued
to weep without reserve.

" She was lovely — lovely; I can see it through
all he says of her, and how bitterly she blamed
herself to be the cause of her husband's and son's
abandonment by their fine relations. She would
have been willing to give them up, to go off any-
where, in any poverty, so they might have the
position, and luxuries, and advantages of the sta-
tion to which they were born. But they clung to
each other and to her, as anybody might know they
would!"

And once more the hot tears came.

There was a moment's silence in which Mrs.
Laniston canvassed this unprecedented diffi-
culty.

" And now he reproaches himself that afterward
he did not go to his grandfather. He is wild
about it. He says his grandfather was right from
his standpoint, and he was old and forlorn, and
yearned for the arm of his son's son to lean upon.

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He is stricken with remorse, and he has no peace.
No — he didn't talk at all about the legacy."

Mrs. Laniston gathered her forces for a
desperate coup.

" Lucia Laniston, listen to me. You are not
falling in love with that man, for of course you
couldn't consider so ignorant a person, with so
frightful an accent and choice of phrases. But
you are allowing your imagination to become
involved."

" Oh, no, Aunt Dora," Lucia murmured. But
Mrs. Laniston kept on.

" It is not becoming for you to sit here on the
floor in that nice dress — and there is no earthly
process by which those delicate fabrics can be
cleaned — and weep your eyes out about a stranger's
mother. No matter how lovely — and she took an
international prize for beauty — she was a circus
girl, or a ballet dancer, a position that in itself
it is impossible to ignore or forget, no matter what
he or anyone else may say. I am glad, since his
father was one of Judge Lloyd's sons, that he is
to be redeemed from that awful calling; it seems
that he will own that small Jennico plantation
near us in Louisiana, and the little six-room frame
house on it. I suppose he will farm there,
and maybe some people will receive him on
sufferance — such an uneducated man, my dear!
Of course I know if he were really rich he
could go where he pleases, and the best society
would pull caps for him, and he could marry whom

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he chooses. Don't think I am sordid, dear. /
don't make these conventions. They are the in-
exorable law of the world. But consider, my
dear, what — once in New Orleans, or St. Simon's
Island, or Jacksonville — you would think of such
a cavalier. You know I have never been hateful
and stiff with you and Ruth. I have let you have
all the good time you could with propriety. I
think this young fellow's prize-beauty makes him
very fetching, and his * lydy,' isn't the awful ad-
dress it would be on any other tongue; and his
suddenly inheriting a bit of money is like a
romance. But life is made up of commonplaces
and realities, dear, and a girl who lets herself
dream in the moonlight must wake at least to a
very sordid day. Your papa wouldn't forgive me
if I didn't warn you, dear. Love must be founded
on respect; a man must be in a position for a
woman to look up to him, to defer to his experi-
ence and judgment, and superior information and
education. A woman cannot lead a husband by
the hand."

" You take too much for granted, Aunt Dora,"
Lucia interrupted, a trifle angrily.

" A man with a past like his would reveal a
thousand amazing tastes and prejudices and views,
the like of which you never heard. You would
spend your life in teaching, and combating, and
obliterating. And the little six-room frame — •
seems to me it has a little garden in front, with
turfed flower beds, raised in stars, and hearts, and

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triangles. If cotton doesn't pick up somehow you
can't expect much from your father till his death — *
I hope for your sake, as well as his, that's a long
way off. He is a young man, comparatively; he
may marry again. I want you to make a com-
fortable match, and be easy and happy. Ruth's
prospects are so good in her engagement to Philip
Trumbull — I wish I could make her write more
regularly to that man — she is so idle! — and I
couldn't bear for you to be less appropriately
placed."

" I haven't asked him to marry me, Aunt Dora,"
Lucia said suddenly in her natural manner, " and
I can assure you that he has not made the slightest
intimation tending that way."

"Well, so far, so good! Get up off the floor
— that stuff pulls so, and just see how your knee
is straining it. What a moonlight night! " she
exclaimed, rising and standing before the window.
" What a mystery on the mountains I "

364

CHAPTER XVII

THE morning broke with abounding good
cheer. It was impossible not to respond
to the revivifying matutinal influences.
The vast solemnity of the austere mountain ranges
filling the universe seemed more impersonal. Some
stupendous, resplendent work of art might thus
affect the senses. Only a keenly receptive tem-
perament, the impressionable, plastic mood, might
embrace its insistent meaning, its eloquent mes-
sage, its redundant appeal to every vibrant, sensi-
tive pulse. One saw the reality, yet put it aside,
postponed it, like the great facts of life and death,
and the momentousness of eternity, turning instead
to the cheerful trifle of the hour. And perhaps it
was enough to breathe such fresh balsamic air, to
hear the sonorous periods of the lordly wind sound-
ing over cliff and torrent, while all the poly-tinted
leafy forests bent in obeisance; to see with the
shallow outward eye the variant tints of blue, from
the dark blurred efflorescence on the nearest slopes
to the translucent sapphire of further ranges and
thence to a hard, clear, turquoise blue, and so to
a faint, vague azure that one could hardly dis-
criminate from the sky line; and above still, the
silent great, white domes, where, although so
early, the snow had fallen. Even the shadows

365

The Windfall

were but simulacra of winged joys, as the white
dazzling clouds sped through the sky, while their
similitudes followed swiftly below over the moun-
tain side and the valley, racing for some unim-
agined aerial goal. The air was full of woodsy
fragrance — the odour of sere leaves, the pungent
aroma of mint and of waterside weeds, the balsamic
breath of fir and pine. Keen, too, withal; the
group gathering around the hearth in the office
comprised all the adult guests in the house, save
a few loiterers, still lingering at the breakfast
tables nearest the fire in the great dining-room.
Now and then juvenile parties came thundering
down the stairs with golf clubs or tennis rackets,
rushed through the office, and were gone, banging
the glass doors to imminent fracture, or the hearth-
side was recruited by the laggards from the break-
fast table bringing a whiff of cold air from the
transit through the hall. Ruth and Lucia were
rubbing their pink hands, and shivering in their
boleros of dark red and light blue cloth respec-
tively, worn over their sheer lawn morning dresses,
to the wonderment of Jardine, who could not com-
prehend why, if they were cold, they should not
wear warm cheviot gowns, unmindful of the un-
written law of truly orthodox Southern women,
who would fain cling to their white lawn attire
till the snow falls. Lloyd's theatric discrimination
had already appraised the effect of their Dresden
belt ribbons, and high stocks, the one in red and
brown, the other blue and pink. He bowed to

366

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them with distant gravity, but his face had a sug-
gestion of happiness which had not heretofore
characterised its quiet composure. His peculiar
appeal to popular favour had been all the more
effective because of the romantic history of good
fortune detailed in his absence last night, and there
had been some very hearty hand-shaking in the
casual introductions around the fireside this morn-
ing. All the house looked with a joyous prepos-
session upon the newly found legatee and a sort
of vicarious pleasure. They were even prepared to
find a certain quaint zest in his " outrageous
profession," as one irreconcilable old prig
called it.

" Did you have a fine bout with the gloves? "
asked a clean-shaven gentleman, taking his cigar
from his smiling lips. His expression just now
was as benignant as a bishop's, but he was broker
at home.

Lloyd was a trifle embarrassed ; he did not know
how much of the lawn had been in view from his
interlocutor's point of observation.

" Oh, Mr. Laniston will get so he can stand
up, after a little."

There was a laugh around the circle, and
Frank's pink cheeks grew very red.

" Why, Francis," exclaimed his mother in gen-
uine amazement, " I thought you were a champion
boxer!"

" Oh, I've got it in for him, good and hot,"
Frank sputtered, over his cigarette.

The Windfall

"Did he down you?" asked the broker.
" Really? "

" I fell over somehow, every time he crooked
his little finger."

" I'll get him so that he can stand up," said
Lloyd patronisingly.

" There's all the difference in the world between
a pastime and a profession," said the broker. " We
see that in the market — a little flier once in a while
— and a plunger."

" But will you continue this profession, Mr.
Lloyd? " the prig fixed him with such a scandalised
expression in his prominent, lashless eyes, that it
amounted to an intentional reproach and affront.

Mr. Dalton seemed to resent it.

" He has something better to do." He laughed
prosperously, and stroked his moustache.

" He was signing cheques for half an hour this
morning," continued the lawyer. This boast was
not in the best taste, but Lloyd had so far won
upon him that he was both sensitive and belligerent
in his client's behalf.

The showman was pained, and winced visibly.

" Just some little things I wanted before the
fairy gold melts away," he said, laughing but
disconcerted. He had begun to entertain great
confidence in Mr. Dalton, but bruiser though he
was, he could not appreciate the lawyer's faculty
for putting people down.

Mr. Dalton took from his pocket a great sheaf
of letters, ready stamped for the mail.

36$

The Windfall

" And I had better post these while I think of
it; " he began to sift them apart, and one by one
slipped them into a slit in the counter where a box
lurked for their reception.

* The first expresses filial piety, and endows a
bed in a hospital in his mother's name. The sec-
ond orders a monument to the memory of his
parents."

Mr. Dalton looked around with a triumphant
eye, evidently bent on " rubbing it in."

;t Then comes the discharge of just debts.
James Tunstan."

" That's Wick-Zoo," said Lloyd, suddenly for-
getful of the public display of his affairs. He
looked with a laugh of extreme relish at Frank,
who cried hilariously, " Oh, hi ! the wild man ! "

" And John Haxon."

" Captain Ollory," Lloyd interpreted, still smil-
ing, half regretfully; the street fair seemed now
some tender reminiscence of many a year agone.

" I can't persuade my young friend to sever his
connection with the greatest show on earth," Mr.
Dalton laid the letters on one knee and glanced
around the circle with an expression of disapproval
and exasperation. " That is, he doesn't propose
to manage it personally or to perform, but he still
remains a partner, and intends to finance it. With
all its faults, he loves it still! — and Haxon suc-
ceeds to the managerial — er — er — er — ermine."

1 Why, they'd go to pieces without me — to ever-
lasting smithereens 1 " exclaimed Lloyd excitedly.

The Windfall

" And it's hard to get a place in a company to
break your neck in ! "

" But I understand they went off and left you"
said Dalton.

" Somebody had to stay, and I was the captain
of the ship."

" But, Mr. Lloyd, think of the unpleasant per-
sonal publicity," said the priggish gentleman.
" They will advertise your name in this connection
and make money out of it. That's what they'll do
— make money out of it. They will use your acces-
sion to fortune as a sensation, a card to draw peo-
ple to the show."

" Exactly what I wrote to Haxon — work it for
all it's worth, and quit sousin' in that old tank of
yours that will break your back and drown you
some day! I'll keep that show going — straight
goods; it kept me going many a day."

Mr. Dalton mournfully shook his head, and the
priggish gentleman, too inquisitive for good form
— but he was justified in some degree by the un-
common circumstances — demanded :

14 Then you contemplate a different occupation
for your own life, I suppose?"

'Yes; I'm fed up with knocking about the
world. I want to be quiet for a change. I'll go
to my own house," he paused, and shook his head
a trifle sadly. " Sounds funny to me ! I don't un-
derstand farming, but I'll see if I can catch on. I
like animals, but they're wild generally; the lions
and panthers and such fellows always get to know

37,0

The Windfall

me almost before I notice them. Maybe cows and
mules would seem tame." He laughed a little.

" Professor Gordon B. Lancaster," read Mr.
Dalton from another stamped and addressed en-
velope, " — thought I'd mislaid his letter; desiring
if possible to secure his company and services."

" Ah, to read with Mr. Lloyd," said the prig-
gish gentleman, a look like a benediction in the
lashless orbs, such satisfaction beamed from them.
44 Yes — yes; you are still young enough to prepare
for a collegiate course."

"But I don't contemplate that," said Lloyd,
very calmly; " I'd fizzle out at that. This gentle-
man, if he accepts, will seem to the world to be my
secretary, but in private life he will be my tutor,
and live with me in my house."

Mrs. Laniston looked bewildered.

" But I should think that would be more ex-
pensive than a regular university course."

Mr. Dalton smiled and beamed, and tapped the
letter against the sheaf he was sorting.

" A good bit of money goes with the real es-
tate. Mr. Lloyd thinks he can afford to put himself
on a level in culture with his station."

* Very praiseworthy," said the prig.

" I haven't the proper foundation for the clas-
sics," explained Lloyd. " I propose that this gent
shall read with me. Hist'ry is the racket I care
most for. When I performed with a circus com-
pany I travelled with through Europe, I saw
enough to excite my wonder, and I jus' wondered,

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an' wondered. Now I want to know. And the
poets and general literachure ! My father used to
read a great deal of such stuff when his health had
disabled him, and I am going to travel right along
the road he took, and read the words he read, and
dream the dreams he dreamed. I never had the
time before. I'm strong on the common rudiments
— readin' and writin' and arithmetic."

"A very fair accountant," Mr. Dalton com-
mended the meritorious attainment.

" Oh, yes; kept the books of the company."

" * Greatest show ' " suggested Mr. Dalton,

dimpling.

And the impresario had the grace to laugh
good-humouredly, though he flushed, too.

" Now here are two letters to the department
stores," said Mr. Dalton, who for some reason
seemed bent on exploiting his client, who in his
inexperience and his absorption in the strange de-
velopments of his affairs, apparently saw nothing
unusual in the trend of the conversation.

* They've not got stamps," he exclaimed ex-
citedly, " That'll never do. They must get off !
Can you accommodate me?" to the affable clerk.
" Thanks, much."

"They are both orders for dry goods?" said
Mr. Dalton.

" Oh, no; this is for the hydrostatic bed for the
Living Skeleton. That poor man's bones, that he
lives by, torture him. The feather beds, and the
flock beds, and the mattresses are simply fierce.

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The Windfall

And he is stingy, yet he is tolerably warm in this
world's goods. And he is an educated man. But
he always stuck at the expense. Now he has
got it."

Lloyd chucked the letter into the slit with ex-
treme satisfaction.

" Stop — hadn't you better ask some lady about
the number of yards for that gown, Mrs. Lanis-
ton, for instance, before you mail that letter? "

"If you will be so very kind." The ci-devant
showman turned toward Mrs. Laniston with that
distinguished manner which she had first observed
in him. " It depends, of course, on the size of the
person. It is a gown for the fat lydy. She is
sensitive, and suffers dreadfully from the public.
But she is a very nice lydy ! I think she would like
to be beautiful, and as she has so few pleasures I
thought a surprise might tickle her. So I ordered
sixty yards of silk — the heaviest and best quality."

" Oh, oh, I should think that would be ample,"
said Mrs. Laniston, decorously able to preserve her
gravity.

But Ruth's dimples could not be hid; she was
all pink now, and smiled alluringly.

" What tint— Mr. Lloyd? " she asked.

" Alice blue," he replied, quite solemnly, and
Ruth's suppressed laughter burst out uncontrollably
at the idea.

His eyes had a suggestion of reproach, as he
looked at her, but Lucia's face was grave, deeply
flushed, pondering, pained.

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The Windfall

"Hard life, to be a freak," Lloyd said; then
as if for tabulation of correspondence by Mr. Dai-
ton — " One dozen pink sandals for flying lydy.
She has so much trouble presenting fresh soles to
the public, and dingy ones show so."

" And now, your grand relative, Thomas Lloyd,
Esquire."

"Do you visit him in Glaston?" the habitue
of Glaston asked with an added infusion of respect.

" No, sir! " said the ex-showman, with his first
touch of stiffness. "He visits me at my house."

" Mr. Thomas Lloyd wrote to request the
honour of a visit, and I brought the letter," said
Mr. Dalton ; he still had the air of exploiting a case
and marshalling his points, one by one, before a
judge or a jury. " It seemed an agreeable arrange-
ment to me, but Mr. Lloyd saw the matter in a dif-
ferent light. He is a man equipped for tours de
force, and he seemed to think it best to make the
mountain come to Mahomet. So we telegraphed his
refusal and his counter invitation last night, and
received a long distance telephone of acceptance
this morning. Now Mr. Lloyd writes to name the
day. It seems he is not leaving New Helvetia
immediately."

" I hope you don't inconvenience yourself on my
account — our little contract," said Frank, with
solicitude.

Lloyd showed sudden embarrassment.

" No — no ," he said, his fine face flushing,

his candid eyes faltering. " Not on your account.

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The Windfall

I know you'd release me. I'm tired of hustling
round; and — I like the place, and I've a little leis-

ure now."

Mr. Jardine hearkened to this in prophetic dis-
pleasure. His pride, his self-respect, had been
cut down by the part he had played in the
esclandre of the previous evening, and yet he
could not reproach himself with precipitancy. He
had vainly sought to evade, to shake off this
dangerous, this derogatory association, since the
incident of the Ferris Wheel. The crisis was
forced when he had seen the woman he loved
and admired and respected unsuspiciously prom-
enading the moonlit verandah in this show-
man's company. The fact that he proved to be
the scion of a family of standing, and that he had
been lifted from vagabondage to competence by
the provisions of a will did not in any small de-
gree annul the objections to his career and the
suspicion, which Jardine felt was justified, of re-
cent complicity with the moonshiners in their un-
lawful traffic. Jardine's inherent caution, how-
ever, was rendered more conservative by the circum-
stance that the fellow-traveller had proved to be a
lawyer, rather than a Federal emissary, and was
charged with a mission of honour and service to
the object of his suspicion instead of espionage and
arrest, as he had fancied, and he was devoutly
thankful that this ludicrous mistake of identity was
not definitely elicited in his impetuous and unchar-
acteristic outburst last night, when he had de-

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The Windfall

manded an explanation. The sensational outcome
with its elements of romance, so alluring to the
average mind, had served to obliterate at the time
Jardine's own extraordinary conduct, and although
it had recurred to the memory of more than one
of the group, since the excitements had subsided,
they had hesitated to mention it. Jardine was
not a drinking man, but intoxication only might
serve to account with simplicity for the demon-
stration. His was a nature of almost austere
reserve and his presence had always a certain
distinction and dignity difficult to disregard. Most
of those present after the breaking up of the party
last night, lingering to finish out their cigars, had
reconciled themselves to the ravages of their curi-
osity, and there was a sentiment of gratitude as to
a public benefactor when the broker suddenly ac-
costed Jardine.

" By the way, Mr. Jardine, you treated us to
a fine sensation to-night. Were you acquainted
with this lawyer and his lucky client, or whom did
you suppose them to be? "

" A case of mistaken identity," said Jardine
easily, but with the certain aloof composure that
became him so well. " I beg you won't refer to it.
I could not discuss it — very embarrassing. Good-
night." And he turned away.

In the days that ensued Mr. Jardine's gloomy
expectations seemed hardly likely to be justified.
Mrs. Laniston had taken the helm with a strong
hand, and the sway that she could maintain when

376

The Windfall

she would was amply manifest. The two girls
were continually under her wing, and the old
routine of their occupations was re-established as
before the outing to Colbury. Jardine once more
found himself her partner at bridge against Lucia
and Ruth, whiling away long hours of rainy
weather, while Lloyd was smoking and chatting
or playing billiards with some of the other gentle-
men, with whom he had swiftly become cordial
friends, or deep with his lawyer in business cor-
respondence, or out exercising with the stalwart
Frank. Mrs. Laniston was not so radical in her
management of the situation as to attract atten-
tion, not even indeed from the persons most con-
cerned. Now and again Lloyd, all unsuspicious
of her effort at avoidance, entered into conversa-
tion with the two young ladies in the group by the
office fire, and their chaperon had not a word or
glance to check them. She even smilingly sur-
veyed the scene when more than once he joined
them in the procession of young people who, in
wraps and rubbers, essayed a constitutional tramp,
trudging up and down the wet and windy piaz-
zas while tfre persistent rain steadily fell without
and the rest of the world had vanished utterly
in the clouds. But these occasional incidents oc-
cupied inconsiderable fractions of time, and counted
but scantily against the long hours that Jardine
spent in their society, at cards, or driving in the
woods, or reading aloud to them, while they sat
at their crochet-work in the bay-window, an im-

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The Windfall

proving book, of which Mrs. Laniston had ex-
pressed her desire that he should give them his
views, in marginalia, so to speak, which were some-
what in contravention of the conclusions of the
author. Mr. Jardine entertained a conviction not
only that he read well, but that his thoughts did
not suffer disparagement in contrast with the ex-
positions of the text.

It was not altogether with a good grace, how-
ever, that Jardine fell into line under these tactics.
Mentally he revolted at every concession, even
slight and apparently obligatory, to evade an awk-
ward discrimination against Lloyd. Jardine could
tolerate no half measures, and the errors of this
policy he deemed amply demonstrated one morn-
ing of brilliant sunshine when all the guests were
assembled in the hotel office awaiting the arrival
of the stage from Colbury.

When the stage came in with the mail, but with
not a single passenger, there was a general diversion
of the attention of the group around the fire. Let-
ters were opened and read, the recipients now
frowning over unwelcome information, now with
hard-set teeth and firm jaw, as the eyes scanned the
lines, in prophetic refusal of a proposition as yet
hardly presented. Only once or twice was there a
gleam of pleasure, so awry does the world go with
most of us, so do anxiety and disillusionment, and
actual disaster predominate. The composite ex-
pression of countenance of the group after opening
the mail was a reluctant and grudging thanksgiving

37,8

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that matters were no worse. The columns of
market prices and stock quotations in the news-
papers came in for serious and silent study, and the
politician, who had congressional aspirations, pon-
dered long and deeply over the reports of the re-
turns from certain local elections, of moment to a
possible canvass.

Mr. Dalton and his young friend had retired to
the bridge table in the bay window, where the man
of law explained and expatiated upon certain busi-
ness interests of which his correspondence treated.
Now and again Lloyd's eyes wandered to the ve-
randah outside where Lucia and Ruth were rapidly
walking to and fro in the sunshine, their sheer,
crisp, white skirts waving in the speed of their mo-
tion and their chilly hands tucked under their
elbows in the sleeves of their blue and red boleros.
Jardine noticed that they smiled graciously upon
the two gentlemen in the bay-window as they
passed. They came in presently, all aglow, an-
nouncing their intention to make up a party for
the bowling alley.

" Mamma says the ground is too damp for ten-
nis," pouted Ruth, glancing at Jardine, expectant
of partisanship and counsel.

He had been saying to himself bitterly that
it was not his capacity for self-sacrifice in Lucia
Laniston's interests that was limited, but the pos-
sibilities. Her aunt had been present throughout
the scene of the disclosure of identity and other-
wise knew as much of the man as he did, for his

379.

The Windfall

suspicions could not have been safely suggested,
and he had no means of proving their truth. He
was amazed to find that his anger against Lucia
Laniston, his disapproval of her headstrong folly,
had not diminished the strength of his attachment,
for the qualities she had displayed throughout the
Street Fair episode were precisely the traits with
which he had least sympathy — unconventionality,
girlish impetuosity, a lack of solid judgment, a
flighty fun that no sane man could enjoy, a wild
relish of fantastic novelty, and the evening of their
return a flout at a friendly monition and a defiant
persistence in her own course. He loved her, it
was clear, and he had an infinite patience where she
was concerned.

He merely bowed with silent acquiescence in the
proposition to wile away the time with tenpins,
but Mrs. Laniston broke out with inexorable
negation.

" No — no bowling alley to-day. The roof leaks
like a riddle and the building is sopping with damp-
ness and as chilly as a vault. What are you two
thinking of?"

Lucia's countenance clouded with disappoint-
ment.

;< We can't sit moping by the fire all this mag-
nificent day, Aunt Dora," she plained.

For his life Jardine could not refrain from com-
ing to the rescue.

" What do you say to a brisk gallop in the sun-
shine? The horses are in fine fettle."

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The Windfall

" The very thing! " cried Ruth.

" I just live for the saddle ! " declared Lucia,
beaming with pleased anticipation.

" What a help he'll be to Mrs. Jardine (when
he finds her) in making up her mind! " said Ruth,
in explanatory wise to Lucia.

" How astonished Mrs. Jardine will be (when
he finds her) at the way he can hit it off when he
does let himself go ! " said Lucia, in an affected
aside to Ruth.

Jardine laughed with genuine good humour. It
had been so long since he had encountered this fic-
tion of " Mrs. Jardine " that he was heartily glad
to hear of her again, and was disposed to think
them and their ingenuity in manufacturing her
views very fetching.

" Shall I have your saddle put on Admiration? "
he asked of Lucia, for two of the horses were his ;
the affection of the liver which he had, or fancied
he had, was presumed to be benefited by horse-
back exercise, and as Mr. Jardine had no affinity
for martyrdom he had brought his own excellent
mounts with him. On occasions like this he sacri-
ficed his own pleasure and rode an animal from the
livery stable which, however, kept very passable
stock, especially since the hard driving and riding
of the season were over and the horses had had
time to recuperate.

" Oh, do, Lucia," cried Ruth. " I'm afraid of
Admiration. He's dear, but he dances so on his
hind legs."

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The Windfall

" He's perfectly safe," said Jardine, " only a
little spirited."

" And so fast 1 I lo-o-ve him ! " declared Lucia.

"And will you have the mare, Rosabel?" he
asked Ruth, respectfully.

" Oh — won't I, though! " she said, dimpling.

" And the rest of us will have to put up with the
livery stable nags," said Frank, oblivious of the
fact that Mr. Jardine had not invited him to join
the party; indeed Jardine had contemplated taking
the two girls on a decorous morning canter, riding
a livery stable nag between the two, and had by
no means proposed an equestrian party. Still, the
suggestion had grown out of the taboo of tenpins
and tennis, and it was natural, with his cubbish
facility for blundering, that Frank should not think
the project at all exclusive. Indeed, the idea that
it was to be a general outing of the youth of the
place was shared by others as well, and one of the
elderly gentlemen, the broker from New Orleans,
turned with a sudden inspiration to Lloyd, who had
completed his business with Dalton and now
waited to pass through the group.

" Let me warn you against the livery nag. I
have an extra good saddle, horse here, and shall be
much complimented to put you up."

He had been greatly attracted by the young fel-
low's face and manner; besides Lloyd might be
soon seeking investment for his money, and there
was no telling when he would want to buy or sell

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The Windfall

stocks. Fair words go as far in the brokerage
business as any other.

Jardine was amazed and incensed at Lloyd's
ready acceptance, and the broker, turning to the
telephone, was the first to cry "Hello" to the
livery stable.

It seemed a fate, the most mischievous of com-
plications, that Jardine's effort to save his lady-
love the ennui of a dull day should presently place
her beside the man of all others whom he wished
her to avoid — handsomer than ever in correct
equestrian costume — " possibly his gear as a ring-
master," Jardine thought, with a sneer — and rid-
ing like a centaur. The broker's horse was a
stylish, well-bred brute, and his very proximity
seemed to stimulate Admiration to sudden bursts
of competitive speed. Both mounts were hard to
hold, and Lucia had never seemed half so beautiful,
so spirited. Her dark-green riding-habit enhanced
her fairness. She wore the regulation high stiff
silk hat on her fluffy brown hair, with a shimmer-
ing white silken veil twisted half about it, and half
about her throat. Her high white collar and shirt
front in their mannish effect and a dark-red four-in-
hand tie were her special pride. Her airy poise
on the side-saddle seemed to Lloyd infinite temerity
and a great sacrifice to feminine bondage in con-
vention, for he was accustomed to see " lydies "
ride cross-saddle, but she appeared to have much
confidence, and maintained a secure seat. Erect

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The Windfall

and fearless she now and again looked over her
shoulder to invite Ruth's bright-eyed sympathy
from the distance. For Rosabel could not canter
in the same class; sleek and gentle and fleet enough,
she was ideal for a lady's use, and Jardine jogged
on his hired nag beside her. Jardine had jock-
eyed, as one may say, to throw Lloyd with Ruth
Laniston, and himself join the two ahead. But
Lloyd had taken his place beside Lucia's rein,
and persistently kept it. Frank was soon losing
ground. He could not maintain the pace, and Jar-
dine presently to his immeasurable chagrin found
the brother and sister beside him while the fleeter
steeds carried the couple ahead on and on — out of
sight.

For a time neither drew rein; the sandy road,
beaten hard by the late storm, was ideal. The
foliage of the forest trees all along the vast slopes
was freshly washed and resplendent. The illumi-
nated yellow of the maples and hickories might have
dispensed with the sun in its wonderful clarity of
tone; it seemed to glow with inherent light. The
red of the sourwood and the sumach and the
scarlet oak contrasted richly. Down in the valleys,
glimpsed whenever the road skirted the mountain's
verge, one could see that the deciduous trees were
still green, but on these lofty levels no foliage
showed verdant save the fir and the pine. The
wind itself seemed hardly more swift than the
racing steeds; the clouds, dazzlingly white above
the endless blue ranges, challenged their speed,

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The Windfall

scudding before the high aerial currents above
even the bare domes, the " balds " of the moun-
tains.

Now and then as the riders skirted a precipice
they caught sight of a swift torrent, leaping down
the mountain side, in cataract after cataract. Once
Lloyd checked his horse to mark how the great
vine that climbed from among the roots of a giant
poplar on'the slope below to its topmost branch,
was laden with grapes; on a level with the road sat
the cub of a bear in their midst, feeding on the
fruit, pausing to gaze at them with a quaint ursine
stare.

The horses snorted and sprang aside, and he laid
his hand on her bridle as they passed along the
narrow precipitous way. It was somewhat too
narrow, too precipitous for this breakneck speed,
and perhaps but for his peculiar insensibility to
danger in equine matters he might earlier have
checked it.

" We had best go slow along here," he said.
" The earth is soft with the rain, and it might
cave. Step lightly, my friend," he addressed the
animal. But when they came on good rock-ribbed
footing he did not mend their pace.

" Yes, we will go slow," she said, " and wait
for the others."*

" I don't care for them to overtake us," he said.
" I have something in mind I want to say to
you."

She looked confused, agitated. Her flush rose

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•The Windfall

to the roots of her hair. She turned upon him her
beautiful eyes — was it appeal or was it a gentle com-
passion that looked out at him inscrutably. Then
she turned them hastily away.

" Don't say it," she exclaimed. " Don't say
it!"

* You know already what it is — and why should
I not speak? You want to spare me?"

She made a gesture of assent.

" I am not very easy hurt; that's one value of
the hard knocks I've had; I'm equal to taking my
punishment. I hardly hoped — how could I? But
from the moment I saw you there on the piazza of
the hotel in Colbury I knew the difference 'twixt
prose and poetry. The world's been set to music
since; sometimes it's sad, and sometimes it's sweet,
but it's all singing rhymes. I loved you from the
minute I heard your voice — but I did not begin to
say my prayers to you till that night in the wheel ;
oh, you seemed so kind, so good, made in a special
creation, unlike all in heaven or earth — not an
angel — 'cause you are a woman; not a woman —
'cause you are a blessed saint! Oh, I lived to see
you, and in all my troubles I'd only have to think
of you, and though I never expected you to speak
to me again my heart would be light — light I "

He broke off suddenly.

" Oh, I distress you ; " for her head was bent
low and he saw the tears falling from her eyes on
her little trembling riding gloves. " And you are
so kind; you wanted to spare me."

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The Windfall

" No," she said, suddenly, brokenly; " I wanted
to spare myself, for, oh — oh, I care as much as
you — and more ; more! "

She could not look at him, but she knew that his
face was irradiated.

" Then — why — why can't we be happy to-
gether? Say it again! I can't believe it! "

" No — no " She was calming herself,

sorry and dismayed that she had said aught. She
had lost her self-control, and was struggling hard
for composure.

" You mean that your friends would object? I
would not have spoken a word, but for this change.
I told you that if I had a chance for life on a bet-
ter scale I'd take it. I have the means to make
your life comfortable; I could not, I would not
have asked you to make any sacrifice. Ought you
to let your friends prevent our marriage if you care
—if you really care? "

"It is impossible — the sorrow of my life, but
impossible 1 " He gave a sigh of perplexity.

" You think I am — or rather my life has made
me — so unacceptable? "

" I am so artificial," she sobbed. " I should not
be easily contented."

She thought of the little six-room house just
across the swamp and beyond the bayou, near her
aunt's handsome country place in Louisiana, and
tried to see herself there — in a rocking-chair on the
porch, or planting seeds in the turfed, star-shaped
flower beds.

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The Windfall

" You are no more artificial than a lydy of cul-
chure should be," he asseverated. Then ensued
a long pause during which she glanced at him as,
with a frown of doubt and perplexity, he looked
far away at the horizon line, and she winced to
note his grace and perfect pose in riding, realising
the tawdry life which this apotheosis of equestrian-
ism comprehended and represented.

" If you care," he said, " and God bless you for
the word, will we be happy apart? "

" Oh, no ! no ! " she said, with a gush of tears.
" A great joy has knocked at my door, and I can't
open to it, but must bar up, and draw the bolts,
and — how can I be happy? "

He turned in the saddle and looked sternly at
her.

"Are you promised — to — another? That Mr.
Jardine, perhaps? "

She rejoiced to see the fires of jealousy fiercely
kindling in his eyes. She burst into a peal of
laughter.

" Oh, poor Mr. Jardine," she cried. " To be
jealous of poor Mr. Jardine ! "

4 Then, why — why — ?" he asked impatiently.

" Can't you see that there would be no happi-
ness for us together? We are of different worlds.
I couldn't endure to see you give up your standards
— and yet I could not abide them. The distance
between us would widen, not close. I have no in-
stincts for the simple life, and you would have no
interest in the artificial."

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The Windfall

Once more the dark and dreary little farm-
house came within her mental range of vision.

" You would not know what I relinquished, nor
I what you sigh for. You keep up your connection
with your roving company for their benefit, and
I honour you for your generosity — but I would
prefer a more selfish man, with more regard for the
sneer of the world."

"And you care for that — the sneer of the
world?" '

" The world would think I had quite thrown
myself away."

" H-a-rdly — ha-a-rdly. The world noses out a
little money mighty quick! "

" All your training, won with such pain and toil,
is something I can't appreciate ; tawdry and odious
with a personal application, a stumbling-block and
an offence to me; and all I have been taught and
have striven for is beyond your ken."

" All I know is I love you ; and all I care for
is that you have said you love me ! " he declared
resolutely.

" And I should never have said it, but I have a
confidence in you beyond my faith in any other
mortal. I wanted you to know it, and keep it hid-
den in your heart, though we part forever."

" For my life I can't see why."

" It will be bitter, but that knowledge will help
us to live through it."

" Oh, we will live through it — like the sur-
vivors live through death. The sun shines on

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The Windfall

graves all over the world, but the mourners go
about the streets. "

She burst into sobbing again, holding up her
handkerchief to her eyes. Suddenly she lifted her
head.

"They are coming — they are coming! Do I
look as if I had been crying? Oh, I don't want
them to know — it's like a sacrilege for them to
know I There! there is a man coming along
that path. What is that in his hand? Let us ride
forward and stop him, as if we had been question-
ing him."

She drew the white gauze veil over her tearful
eyes, and her cheeks all pallid from weeping, and
together they rode forward to hail the mountain-
eer who had stopped stock still on beholding them.
And from the long reaches of the road, like the
footsteps of approaching doom, they heard the
iterative tramp of hoofbeats, every moment grow-
ing louder.

39°

CHAPTER XVIII

A the distanced equestrian party came within
view of the two in advance they perceived
that Lloyd was riding forward toward a
young mountaineer who stood at gaze in the path
which intersected the somewhat more definitely
marked main road. They could hear Lloyd's
cheery, vibrant voice as he called out to him :

" Where does this road lead? "

The man responded in somewhat surly wise,
eyeing, gloweringly, the dashing apparition of the
young horseman, springing up so suddenly in the
midst of the woods, for Lloyd's appearance, thus
well mounted, was doubly effective.

" Why — it jes' leads round an' round about 'n
the mountings." He spoke as if constrained to
elucidate a self-evident proposition. His large
brown eyes, which had a special lustre of surface,
not depth, seemed vaguely familiar, and somehow
inimical, to Lloyd, who started as he heard Lucia
speak, although her voice was too restrained to
reach the mountaineer's ears.

" Look, look ! it is an old acquaintance of ours,"
said Lucia, wheeling her horse to accost the lag-
gards in the rear. " It's Diogenes. Don't you
see the lantern in his hand? It's Diogenes! What

391

The Windfall

distinguished people one does meet in the Great
Smoky Mountains ! "

The young mountaineer shifted his gaze to the
approaching group for an instant only; then he
fixed his intent eyes once more on Lloyd's face.

He was a fine type of his class, well built, tall,
with a peculiarly trig, trim effect. He wore no
coat, and his shirt of blue homespun showed how
slim, yet muscular, was his body, and his long
boots, drawn to the knee over his trousers of blue-
jeans, encased legs of which every movement sug-
gested activity. He had a large brown hat, the
brim in front turned up, and showing a jagged,
ill-cut fringe of hair that resembled an old fashion
of ladies' coiffure, called a " bang." He was as
surly, as ill-conditioned, as unattractive of aspect
as a panther; his handsome traits appealed as
little to one's liking.

Lucia's airy, debonair manner bespoke the blith-
est spirits. " Oh, joy! Diogenes is looking for
you, Mr. Jardine. His quest is successful at last.
You are the honest man! You know it must be
you, for we are all aware how politic poor Frank
is."

For the first time Mr. Jardine deigned to men-
tion Lloyd. Heretofore he would not so much
as glance at him. But he could not resist convert-
ing her pleasantry into a slur, and barbing the point.
" And is not Mr. Lloyd a competitor for distinc-
tion as an honest man? Am I alone? "

Lloyd discerned the acrid taunt in the smooth
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The Windfall

tones and flashed a fierce glance into Mr. Jardine's
bland and smiling countenance.

" Oh, my, no," exclaimed Lucia unexpectedly.
" How can you ask? Didn't Mr. Lloyd fake up
Wick-Zoo as a wild man — shall I ever cease to
shiver when I think of his blood-curdling howls —
when he is really as tame as — as — as you? And
didn't Mr. Lloyd make out that he was nobody
much, and nothing, when he is the grandson of
Judge Clarence Jennico Lloyd, one of^the most
distinguished jurists of the day, and is a representa-
tive of one of the oldest and best families in the
South. Oh, Diogenes wouldn't light his lantern
to examine such a patent fraud as we have discov-
ered Mr. Lloyd to be."

Jardine's thin cheek was flushed, but his tact
enabled him to carry off the " slugging," as Lucia's
retort featured itself in Lloyd's triumphant con-
sciousness, as jauntily as a man well could.

" But really why is he going about here in the
sunshine with that lantern in his hand? " Jardine
pressed his horse forward, and spoke to the moun-
taineer. " What are you doing with that lantern,
my man? "

The mountaineer turned his head slowly and
looked up at Jardine with so sinister an expression
of countenance that Ruth was moved to a subtle
affright.

" Why does Mr. Jardine speak so — so dis-
courteously to an inferior?" she said discon-
tentedly.

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The Windfall

" Because he is that kind of hairpin," said Frank
lucidly.

"Well, it isn't nice; mamma always insists on
special politeness to humble folk."

" You will have a harder hunt than Diogenes, if
you look for mamma's precepts and practice in
general action," said the loyal Frank.

There was something so incongruous with the
inimical, tigerish glow in the mountaineer's eyes,
and the yputh and comeliness of his face, that his
sharp retort seemed whetted to an edge.

" Doin' with it? Totin' it— can't ye see? "

Frank laughed out gaily, with an applausive
cadence. " But why, partner? You understand
that we are from the New Helvetia Springs —
strangers — going around to see what we can see,
and we are asking a million questions of anybody
that will have patience to answer them. And we
can't make out any good reason for you to carry
that lantern out here on this sunlit mountain."

One might think it impossible to look at Frank's
gay, pink, dimpled face and not be mollified. But
the lowering, glum disaffection of the yokel's ex-
pression remained unmitigated. He continued
silent, vouchsafing no response, while his eyes trav-
elled from one to another of the faces of the group,
successively studying their lineaments with no
friendly result. There was a pause of embarrass-
ment disproportioned to the trifling cause that pro-
voked it. To break the awkwardness a few words
were interchanged amongst the riders.

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The Windfall

" Had we not better move on? " suggested Jar-
dine.

" Give Lucia a little time to rest," said Ruth.
Then to Lucia, " How fast you must have been
riding! You look pale with fatigue."

" Oh, I'm not tired at all," said Lucia, flushing
suddenly. " You can preach hygiene nearly equal
to Aunt Dora. I'd be a poor stick if that little
canter could make me pale."

" Mebbe thar's no use fur a lantern on top the
mounting," the mountaineer spoke so suddenly
that more than one of the group started in sur-
prise. " But how about the inside o' the mounting
— ain't much sunlight thar."

" What! a cave? " Frank asked interested.

The mountaineer nodded. His face now had a
slow, pondering expression. He was evidently
following out a line of intricate introspection.
When he looked up again, he seemed a different
creature.

" Finest cave you uns ever seen," he said. The
gleam of his white teeth gave his face an unex-
pected geniality. " It's all plumb white inside,
an' shines powerful in the light of the lantern.
Thar ain't a room at the New Helveshy Springs
ez fine, nor in the hotel at Colbury, nuther."

These instances expressed the limits of his com-
prehension of magnificence, but the incongruity
passed unremarked in the interest of his disclosure.
Ruth and Lucia instantly began to clamour.

" Oh, couldn't we go to see it?" one cried.
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The Windfall

" Oh, what a novelty ! " exclaimed the other.

"Is it far?" asked Lloyd, a little doubtfully.

The man's eyes had been so charged with ran-
cour, with a sense of burning wrath as he had en-
countered their gaze, that Lloyd had been reluctant
in the presence of ladies to elicit words from him.
Lloyd could not, of course, imagine any reason
for this, save the unassuaged hatred that the poor
of a certain type entertain for the presumably
rich and favoured, without regard to individuals
or circumstances. But the reply was as suave
and courteous as the man's limitations rendered
possible. " Thar air two openings ter it. One's a
mile away, but thar's another clost by. I never
know'd about it till one day las' spring. I war
huntin' hyarabouts, an' viewed a dark hole
'mongst some rocks, an' crope in. I fund the place
was a part of a cave I knowed afore. The door
ter it is ever yander nigh the valley. I hed
some matches in my pocket, but I was feared ter
trest 'em fur. So I fetched a lantern, an' went
plumb through ter the other eend. It's a s'prisin'
sight."

" Could you guide us in a little way — so that
the ladies might see something of it — what is best
worth seeing?" said Lloyd. "We will pay you
for your trouble, and your loss of time."

The mountaineer was standing near the show-
man's horse; he cast up his eyes reflectively, and
presumably named a sum of money, for Lloyd
replied :

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The Windfall

" That seems pretty stiff, but we will pay you
that, if you have enough candle, or oil; let me
see ? " and he took the grimy lantern gingerly be-
tween his gloves.

Jardine, tingling with irritation, was constrained
once more to address Lloyd directly. Frank
Laniston, he said to himself, was such a boy, so
plastic to every impulse, that he could do more,
perhaps, by allying himself with this man.

" Don't you think this rather risky? " he asked
distantly.

" I can't judge without investigating," Lloyd
replied, with that quiet dignity which accorded so
ill with his bizarre profession. " I thought I
might go in the cave a reasonable distance with
the guide, and, if it seems safe and worth while,
the ladies might venture a short excursion."

" Why surely, Mr. Jardine." Even the ultra-
amiable Ruth had reached the point of irritation
expressed by emphasis.

"What could be more reasonable?" said
Lucia, also with the countenance of reproach.

Mr. Jardine often felt at these crises that such
a degree of popularity as he enjoyed with them
was hardly worth conserving, but he made many
sacrifices to prevent its impairment, and he was
glad now of an opportunity to recede grace-
fully.

" That's a very good idea. I had not thought
of a reconnoitering expedition."

They set out at a moderate pace, to enable their
397

The Windfall

guide to keep abreast of the horses. The direc-
tion necessitated a divergence from the main road,
a circumstance which aroused in Mr. Jardine a
degree of anxiety and suspicion. He looked about
him sharply, fixing landmarks as well as he might
in his recollection — the situation of a great dome,
the horizontal summit of a range, a high precipi-
tous cliff, looking far away over a hundred minor
ridges and valleys, a green abyss intervenient
among steep slopes, as dank, as lush, as luxuriantly
leafy as if summer had fled for hiding in this
lonesome dell. But the incidents of the way were
repetitious; he could not have discriminated the
difference in the outlook now before his eyes, and
the one which a sudden turn had served to oblit-
erate. The path grew more narrow, less distinctly
marked; it was necessary to proceed in single file,
so closely did the dense rhododendron boughs press
upon the dim outline of a trail. Presently all
outlook was shut off by the redundant evergreen
growth, almost meeting above their heads, the jun-
gle of indefinite extent, and, but for this slender
line betokening a foot-passage, impenetrable. Jar-
dine was as courageous as a reasonable man need
be, but he felt as if he had been foolhardy when
he considered the down-looking, ill-conditioned
aspect of their guide — like that of an implacable
and surly cur — the fact of his gold watch, and
those of his companions, the diamonds on the
daintily gloved hands of the ladies, the well-filled
purses of the men. They were indeed easy vic-

398

The Windfall

tims to highwaymen in this remote and inaccessi-
ble wilderness, and he wondered futilely how he
could have so submitted his judgment to a lady's
unthinking whim. As to Lloyd's indifference, he
was a man experienced only in towns and town
ways; he either did not realise what he might
be encountering, or he was so used to jeopardy in,
his fantastic profession that needless risks seemed
the normal incidents of life.

Of all his anticipations Jardine least expected to
be led to a veritable cave, instead of an ambus-
cade, and his spirits rose incalculably when the
voices of Lloyd and Frank sounded in the van,
proclaiming their arrival at the spot.

It was a wild and lonely place; the sunshine
filtered through the red and gold foliage of the
trees with a lucent glister, as through stained glass.
The rhododendron jungle clustered about, and
fenced off the world impenetrably. A high slope
on one side was bestrewn with gigantic boulders;
great fragments of a fractured cliff towered above,
and amongst them was a vertical crevice of irregu-
lar shape, some eight feet in height. It looked
black, uninviting, sinister; but there were moss-
grown ledges hard at hand, and a dimpling, swirl-
ing rill ran down the declivity and was lost in the
great lush ferns. A breath of exquisite freshness
and blended perfumes pervaded the air, and a
steady current, outward set, was perceptible from
the mouth of the cave.

" The horses can be picketed here, and doubtless
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The Windfall

Mr. Jardine will be kind enough to look after you
two while we are gone," said Frank officiously.

" But why don't you wait also," asked Mr.
Jardine, by no means relishing the exclusive charge
of five fine horses, to swell the booty of the high-
waymen, should he be molested.

" Surely Mr. Lloyd does not have to ascertain
if the excursion is safe for me," said Frank bluffly.
" Either you or I have to stay with the girls, and
I thought you could entertain them best. They
know all my patter from 'way back."

" Oh, certainly," said Mr. Jardine frigidly;
" with pleasure."

Despite his irritation, his preoccupation, he no-
ticed the sudden, acute disappointment on the
mountaineer's face. His jaw dropped, his fierce
eyes stared, disconsolate, doubtful; he was all at
once crestfallen, stumbling, slow. Had he ex-
pected only Lloyd to venture with him into those
bleak abysses ? Why should he deprecate the com-
pany of the stalwart young Laniston? The in-
ference was too plain — they made two to one.
Any false dealing, any foul treachery was now
impracticable. Still Jardine could not refrain from
remonstrating with Lloyd, so imperative was his
persuasion of some strangely inimical element.

" Mr. Lloyd," he said, with more geniality than
one would have thought it possible for him to show,
" let's call this thing off. We have made a mistake
— a serious mistake in contemplating it. I have
my reasons which I will tell you without reserve

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The Windfall

at our first opportunity. We will pay this man
all the same, and consider the money a forfeit.
But I beg of you — I am a serious man, no trifler —
let's call this cave excursion off, right here and

now."

His appeal seemed to impress Lloyd, but Frank
Laniston broke out into his gruffly callow remon-
stances, and the two young ladies set up a plaintive
duet of reproach.

" Lloyd may back out, if he likes," said Frank,
" but I will let no such show as this escape me."

" Oh, Mr. Jardine, how you shilly-shally," cried
Lucia. ' You agreed there was no objection if
Mr. Lloyd would reconnoitre the place."

" Oh, Mr. Jardine, how you willy-nilly," cried
Ruth. " You will have it that there's death and
destruction in every earthly thing we propose. A
serious man ! Yes, as serious as the grave."

The two girls flung about in mock despair, and
finally subsided, their arms interlocked, on one of
the mossy ledges.

" I submit to Fate," said Lucia, " if nobody will
take me in to see this cave I reckon I shall never
have another chance."

"I submit to Fate," echoed Ruth. "If no-
body will take me in to see this cave I shall try
to lead him a life, the rest of my natural exist-
ence!"

And she fixed her eyes on her brother.

" Oh, come on, Lloyd," laughed Frank, in his
gruff, callow fashion. " It's up to us,"

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The Windfall

And he plunged toward the entrance of the
cavern.

The mountaineer turned and looked at Jardine
with so insolent a triumph, so scornful a relish, as
he stood disregarded and disconcerted, that the
force of his inchoate anxieties and suspicions was re-
doubled. The trio disappeared, the lantern glim-
mering feebly in the light of the day, but casting
a stronger glow in the black mouth of the cave, and
suddenly shining like a star, seen through a crevice
higher in the wall of rock.

Jardine seated himself upon a boulder near the
two young ladies. He lifted his hat to bare his
head to the breeze, for the sun had waxed hot,
and he took out his white handkerchief and
mopped his brow wearily. He did not lift his
lashes, but absently regarded his riding-boots, now
and again flicking them lightly with the whip in
his hand. He knew that the eyes of both were
fixed, beguilingly, upon him. He was angry with
them, and he did not wish to be easily placated.
But he did not evade their blandishments.

" Don't you know," said Ruth to Lucia, " that
he is just hoping and praying that Mrs. Jar-
dine (when he finds her) will be like neither
of us."

" And don't you know," said Lucia, in an aside
to Ruth, " that he will just dedicate himself to
teaching Mrs. Jardine (when he finds her) not to
be headstrong and hard-headed, as we are."

It were churlish to resist their fantastic amende,
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The Windfall

and he raised his eyes with a positive plea of anx-
iety in them.

"If you would only consider my views 1 " he
urged. '"If you would but trust to my larger
experience ! It sends me frantic for you to endan-
ger your precious lives. I have done — I am willing
to do everything for your pleasure that is safe
for you. I don't consider my own taste. I love
to be at your service. I care for nothing so much
as your happiness. I think I have shown this,
and I ask in return but one boon — that you do not
run your precious selves into danger — that "

But they desired to hear no more from him on
this theme.

" I shall tell Mrs. Jardine (when he finds her)
that she is not the first I " cried Ruth, dimpling;
" that he made love to both of us ! "

" The jealousy of Mrs. Jardine (when he finds
her) will never know surcease, when she hears he
calls both of us * precious,' " echoed Lucia, with
mock solemnity.

Then they collapsed into their silvery laughter
as they sat on the mossy ledge, and guyed him.

His remonstrances were obviously futile, but be-
fore he had time to attempt another Ruth spoke,
suddenly serious.

" You know I have practised drawing faces so
much — the individual features from the flat, and
the whole countenance in the life class — that I
have become just dead letter perfect in the dis-
crimination of human physiognomy. I don't pre-

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tend to discern character, and all that sort of
thing — to set up as a second Lavater — but a face
with any distinctiveness that I have once seen I
recognise on a second view."

Jardine felt a sudden premonition, as of dis-
covery— a sudden inexplicable sinking of the heart.
He looked at her intently as she paused, leaned
aside, plucked a tiny flowering weed from a niche
in the rock, and turned it in her gauntleted hands.
Lucia, one elbow on the ledge behind her, gazed
indifferently into the great encompassing stretch
of the woods, where in the illuminated air there
was a continual wafting down of the rich, glinting,
yellow leaves.

" I thought I knew that young mountaineer the
moment I saw him," continued Ruth. " And now
I have placed the recollection. He is the young
man who sat in front of us at the song and dance
turn, disguised as an old man. I knew his eyes,
and that slight rise in the bridge of his nose, break-
ing the insipidity of contour — very good shape."

Lucia was erect, looking at her with startled
eyes. " Sure enough? " she said.

Ruth glanced at her with a laughing rebuke
of the slang phrase. " Sure enough ! " she as-
sented.

" Why, that man was in the Ferris Wheel that
night!" exclaimed Lucia. "And I am morally
certain he slung a stone, or iron missile of some
sort, and knocked this Mr. Lloyd out of the
swing. Why didn't you tell him ? "

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The Windfall

" It only came to me a moment ago," said
Ruth. " Besides, you know Mr. Jardine and Frank
thought that idea was just our notion — the vapour-
ings of semi-idiots."

She glanced with pink and beguiling smiles at
Mr. Jardine, expecting his complimentary protest.
But he was too seriously ill at ease to respond.
He, too, had realised the belated recognition, real-
ising as well that it was unconsciously at the root
of his objection to the cave expedition, and his
strong, though undefinable, uneasiness. He was
thinking that if the mountaineer had had the
motive and the venom to attack the manager, his
vindictive rancour would not have been allayed by
the ineffectiveness of his assault. He doubtless
would make another attempt, and this with his
unsuspecting victim at his mercy in the recesses and
dangers of an unexplored cave. He remembered
the guide's patent dismay when Frank Laniston
joined the party, and he began to take comfort
from the fact that the incident was evidently un-
premeditated, and that the man was unable to cope
with odds. If Lloyd and Laniston had but the
discretion to keep together, as indeed they needs
must, for the paucity of the means of light, no dis-
aster might befall them. True they might be led
into difficult and remote labyrinths and left — the
lantern extinguished — to wander till they fell into
abysses, or perished with hunger.

He caught himself sharply. What fantastic
folly was this ? The whole theory was based upon

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The Windfall

a girl's romantic version of a fall from a foolish,
mechanical contrivance — heaven knows how in-
efficiently constructed — and a fancied resemblance
to a face seen only twice before, each time in a
dim light, and apparently half eclipsed by a dis-
guise.

He breathed more freely. He had never before
had to reproach himself with morbidness. The
whole idea was doubtless nonsensical. Even if
it had any foundation in fact, the party outside —
himself and the two girls — would be a check on
treachery of any magnitude. The guide had not
means at hand for such wholesale murder as the
destruction of the two young men would necessi-
tate; evidently he was not armed, or he would
not have flinched, crestfallen and dismayed, when
the muscular Frank Laniston had joined the man-
ager. The report of their disappearance, and a
search party from the hotel and the neighbourhood
might rescue them, if abandoned to the tortuous
depths of darkness, or ascertain their fate, if
treacherously misled into abysses and over preci-
pices. Despite his careful reasoning of a moment
before, he had come back to this horrible possi-
bility.

Suddenly he sprang to his feet. Frank Laniston,
the lantern in his hand, his blond hair damp and
limp over his forehead, his teeth chattering with
cold, his shoulders shrugging with shivers, plunged
out of the entrance with the wild cry:

"Come on! Hurry up! Finest thing yet!
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The Windfall

Great! Perfect palace of wonders! Don't waste
a minute ! "

He caught Lucia by the wrist, and she shivered
at the touch of his cold hand, as he turned, and
together they dashed toward the entrance he had
just quitted.

" Stop, Laniston, I want to tell you something,"
exclaimed Jardine insistently.

" Some other day," called back Frank, between
his chill teeth.

" But I must — I will speak to you ! " began
Jardine.

" I have left that man and Lloyd in the dark,
waiting. The mountaineer didn't want me to take
the light — said it burns faster in motion. He
wouldn't stay alone — said he's afraid of harnts
— ha ! ha ! ha ! And we couldn't make him come
back, said it's bad luck to turn back. So really
I can't stop to listen to you. I can't leave them
there in that awful blackness longer than I am
obliged to. If you are coming — come on ! Follow
the lantern ! "

" I insist — I insist," cried Jardine, advancing
with long strides in their wake over the rocky
ground, finding it impossible to overtake them.
" I insist that you do not take Miss Laniston ! "

Frank was infinitely affronted. He stopped
short and ceremoniously referred the matter to
the lady.

" Are you coming, Lucia ? " he asked.

" Yes, yes ! " exclaimed the girl, grasping his
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arm, and pulling him forward. " Oh, don't stop !
Let us hurry. Oh, get the light back ! "

" Always the pluckiest ever ! " said Frank.

They both were running. Jardine made another
frantic effort to remonstrate and stop them, as he
dashed after them.

" You don't know about that guide ! " he called
out. " We think he is "

" I will tell him I " cried Lucia over her shoul-
der. " Don't stop him. He must get the light
back!"

Seeing the utter hopelessness of his effort Jar-
dine desisted, and retraced his steps to the mouth
of the cave, where Ruth stood waiting. Lucia
did not so much as cast a glance backward, but
Frank paused once to look over his shoulder at
the two in the shadow of the rocks.

" If you two are coming, follow the lantern —
if not, you'll look after Ruth, Mr. Jardine?
Thanks, much."

Jardine was very doubtful of his best course.
If he and Ruth joined the party none of them
might ever be heard of or seen again. Yet he
realised the value of the strength in numbers. Still
the fact that two were without the cave to report
the disappearance of the others, should they not
return after a reasonable interval, was a check on
the possible malevolence and treachery of the
guide.

"The lantern will be out of sight," Ruth
pouted. "Shall we follow them?"

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The Windfall

" To tell you the truth I distrust that guide,"
said Jardine. With women he seldom resorted to
candid speech, and an appeal to their intelligence
and judgment. But he resolved to be frank now,
though he marked how her cheek paled, how her
eyes dilated. " I think that if he has any sinister
intentions our remaining on guard here, so to
speak, will be a check upon them. They will be
rendered impracticable for fear of our report of
the entrance of the party into the cave, and their
failure or delay to return. Now I propose that we
wait here, say, half an hour, and, if we hear noth-
ing of our friends in that time, we will mount our
horses and gallop for help to New Helvetia.
What do you say? "

" Yes, yes, by all means ! But, oh, why, why
did we let them go ! "

" We couldn't help it," said Jardine rather bit-
terly. He was not wont to be so frustrated and
set at naught. He was a man of consideration
in the ordinary associations of life. Never had he
suffered such disparagement as at the hands of
these youthful feather-pates.

" But they will probably come out all right,"
he added, " in a little while, and you and I will
have the pleasure of figuring as alarmists and
cowards — afraid of the cave."

" What a wild country — what wild people,"
Ruth shuddered.

" We will give them half an hour," suggested
Jardine, drawing out his watch to consult it. " And

409

'The Windfall

if they do not rejoin us in that time we will raise
the countryside/*

She assented rather dolorously, and sat down on
the ledge as before, while Jardine resumed his
place on the boulder, near at hand.

The wind blew freshly through the odorous
woods; the gold leaves shifted down in showers;
the crystal rill went purling over the moss, and, as
her watch which she held in her hand ticked away
the minutes, she looked eagerly ever and anon at
the dark crevice-like entrance to the cave, listening
vainly, hoping to hear her brother's boisterous,
boyish voiceft

410

CHAPTER XIX

E"IA, hurrying along beside Frank as he
sturdily strode through the gloom, swing-
ing the lantern to and fro to apprise the
explorers, waiting in the darkness, of his approach,
felt that wings could hardly be swift enough to
convey to Lloyd the warning of his peculiar and
imminent danger. And, yet, it might be even now
too late! She was appalled at the thought of his
risks alone in the depths of an unexplored cavern,
without a light, without a landmark, without a clue
to his station in the subterranean labyrinth, his
only companion a strange, half-civilised man, who
had once already, at great jeopardy to himself,
slyly and treacherously attempted his life. She
marvelled at Lloyd's foolhardy temerity, and then
— and the thought redoubled her speed — she
realised that he had no vague intuition of the secret
of his peril, she was sure that he had not for a
moment recognised or distrusted his guide.

She hardly felt the chill of the rare air; she cared
naught for the rough footing; now and again she
stumbled and clutched at Frank for support, but
instantly pressed on, unwearied, fevered, alert.

Naught so sinister as the unutterable blackness
was ever presented to her imagination. She stared
wide-eyed at the palpable-seeming glooms of the
vast halls, made visible by the dim glister of the

411

The Windfall

little lantern. Things of evil omen, winged, un-
seen, whisked by her head; once a bat struck her
full in the face. The place seemed alive with these
creatures, and, now and again, as she heard their
strange, uncanny squeak, she started violently, all
her nerves jarring.

" We shall soon be beyond the bat zone, Lucia,"
said Frank kindly, remembering the universal
feminine horror of the genus.

His voice, so hearty and cheery in the outdoor
world, seemed strangely hollow, unnatural in this
environment, echoing far away, and coming anew
in a different key, and startling her with the con-
viction of terrible, unseen beings, conferring apart
in the unimagined distance, speaking her name.

" Oh, not a word — " she whispered, " on your
life, not another word," and she clung to him ter-
rified.

He burst out with his boyish, rollicking laughter,
and all the cavern was filled with mocking merri-
ment, raucous, horrible, as if the cachinnation of
invisible fiends repeated his tones, resounding
anew, now here, now there, now far in advance,
now close behind them, and, even at last, when all
seemed still, again an elfin mimicry.

Frank checked himself; he saw that her terrors
were genuine. The feminine ideal had always
figured in his unsentimental appraisement as la
marplot; he was beginning to be afraid, from Lu-
cia's heavier drag on his arm, the dilation of her
eyes, the tremor in her voice, that such courage

412

The Windfall

as she had summoned for the enterprise was already
failing her, and that he would shortly be adjured
to turn about and retrace their way, and restore
her to the glad outer air and the pleasant surface
of the earth. He said naught further, and when
she had begun to fear that they had missed the
trace, although he had told her that for a certain
distance there was no break in the right-hand wall,
and they could not go amiss as long as they kept in
touch with it, she heard a faint halloo in the night,
as one might hear in a dream. When Frank re-
sponded vociferously, it came anew, and stronger
still.

Suddenly she saw, across a vast expanse of utter
darkness, like the face of the deep when the
earth was without form and void, the outline, as
it were, of a promontory growing slowly into being;
a faint flicker of light — it seemed star-like in con-
trast with the deep gloom — revealed two moving
creatures poised there, which she presently recog-
nised as human beings. One, she was sure that it
was Lloyd, had struck a match, and from it had
kindled a bit of wood — it was his forlorn little
cigar-case of imitation lacquer, which he extrava-
gantly sacrificed ; he expected to have better things
after this! While the stolid mountaineer looked
on, Lloyd once more called out blithely to his ap-
proaching acquaintances, and distinguishing the
voice which she had feared would never sound
again, she burst into tears.

Frank, all tingling with the ardour of adventure,
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The Windfall

with the excitements of extreme jeopardy, with the
interest of novelty, felt a surge of resentment
toward her as an inopportune spoil-sport. The
spirit of discipline was strong within him.

" Well, upon my word, Lucia Laniston," he said
severely — and a hundred distant voices were re-
peating, "Lucia Laniston! Lucia Laniston 1"
while she hung upon his arm, vaguely flinching
from the echoes and seeking to stop her ears. " I'll
never take you with me anywhere again, as long as
I live ! There is no danger. What are you cry-
ing for — answer me that? "

And the darkness conjured her — " Answer me
that? "

" Oh, Frank," she whispered: she could not
speak aloud for the echoes — even the sibilance that
followed her words made her now and then shrink
away and look back. Then she put both hands on
one of his shoulders, and stood on tip-toe to bring
her lips close to his ear, " We must look out for
that mountaineer. We have recognised him at last
— both Ruth and I. He is the man whom we
noticed in disguise at the concert where that girl
sang and danced, and who afterward tried to kill
Mr. Lloyd in the Ferris Wheel ! "

" The devil he is ! " exclaimed Frank, stopping
short, disconcerted and dismayed.

uThe devil he is — he is — he is — he is the
devil! " The echoes reiterated the words with a
distracting distinctness, and she put her hand over
Frank's lips.

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The Windfall

' The next time you speak — whisper," she ad-
monished him. " I expected, — Mr. Jardine ex-
pected that he would kill Mr. Lloyd while you
were gone."

" It must be that he has got no pistol," Frank
surmised decisively. " And that's strange, for
these fellows all carry their * shootin' iron ' in the
leg of their left boot. That's the only reason,
I dare swear By sheer strength, he couldn't.
Lloyd could throw him from here to New Helvetia.
He doubtless expected to take Lloyd by surprise,
and suddenly push him over into an abyss, and
didn't get the opportunity. He saw enough of
athletes at the carnival to know he would be out-
matched in a fair fight. Treachery or a pistol was
his only chance. But why on earth did not Jardine
tell me?"

" He tried — he tried — but you wouldn't wait a
minute — you wouldn't hear a word."

Even in the dim light Frank's face showed crest-
fallen, dispirited, mortified.

"I'm sorry you came — but we must make the
best of it. See here, Lucia, when we join them, do
you get close to Lloyd and very quietly tell him —
don't choke him, like you did me; you've pretty
near strangled me, clutching me by the collar that
way — but whisper the facts to him. Very quietly,
mind you. We mustn't excite the suspicions of that
miscreant. Our safety may depend on his think-
ing that we do not recognise him. Let Lloyd know,
and walk with him, and I'll keep right along with

415

The Windfall

Mister Mountain-Man. We will only make a
feint of seeing the cave — just to avoid precipitat-
ing some rascality — and take the first chance to get
out of this as soon as possible."

When they reached the waiting explorers, who
being without adequate light could not come to
meet them, Lucia was no longer walking with her
cousin's arm, but following, as he preceded her,
swinging the lantern. The way had grown rough
and unequal ; sudden unexpected descents made the
walking difficult amidst the jagged edges of the
crag and fragments long ago fallen from the roof;
climbing the acclivity, on which they still stood,
she was now and again fain to clutch at a projec-
tion of rock to assist her steps, and, although she
was rarely light and active, and kept up well with
Frank's long stride, he carefully handled the lan-
tern to afford her all the light possible. It seemed
to Lloyd, however, that she needed more effective
assistance, and, as soon as their proximity made it
possible, he advanced to meet them, as the crafty
Frank had anticipated, and offered her his arm.
Frank turned for a moment, surveying this arrange-
ment, as if he had not expected it; then, address-
ing the mountaineer, but still keeping the lantern
in his own hands, he said bluffly, " Come on, old
Sport — we'll take the lead. Guide us to that
marble palace we were thinking of buying when
we turned back."

" It has got marble palaces beat to a frazzle,"
Lloyd chimed in enthusiastically.

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The Windfall

She noted with a pang, half gratulation, half
grief, that he asked no questions as to the others.
He had no curiosity as to their reasons for de-
clining the excursion. He seemed not even aware
of their absence — to him all had come since she
was here. She felt the strength of his support, his
sure-footed agility, and moved on swiftly and eas-
ily on his arm. But she could not, by lagging, find
an opportunity for her confidential whisper. When
sharp, jagged rocks intervened in the path, and
she slackened her pace, the mountaineer seemed to
observe it immediately, and accommodated his gait
to theirs, although, once or twice, Frank, forging
on with the lantern, the way being obvious, a canon-
like interval, between great, beetling cliffs, left
them so far behind that Lloyd called a halt.

" Remember Miss Laniston," he admonished
the youth. " You are not walking for a purse."
Then, jocularly, " That lantern is not your per-
sonal property — it doesn't look well for you to
make off with it like that."

Somehow, on Lloyd's arm, Lucia forgot to be
afraid. The terrible glooms had a certain grue-
some picturesqueness that no longer appalled her.
She could look up into the infinite vaults of the
darkness, and her hope, her soul, no longer fainted
within her. The lantern, like a tiny star, lucently
white, with a rayonnant halo about its focus,
showed vast, rugged, crag-shaped forms looming
indistinctly in these undreamed-of subterranean
realms, and now the path skirted an abyss of unin>

417

The Windfall

agined depth, and now toiled up an ascent, moun-
tain-like in its vague immensity, but she had no
tremors, no thought of regret for the bland outer
air, and the bliss of the candid sunshine. She
trusted implicitly to him. She knew that he was
ignorant, all untrained mentally, sadly neglected,
hardly used by Fate, but she relied on the inherent
strength of his judgment, his fine, bright, native
intellect, his optimism, his simple valiance in the
fight of life. She did not doubt that she would
have presently an opportunity to disclose the facts
to him, to communicate her warning, and she was
sure that he would instantly know the best course
to pursue, and that he would have the courage
and the dexterity to make it effective. She real-
ised his high moral qualities, so rare in these days
that they seemed like a special gift. His unself-
ishness would take due account of her, of Frank —
his magnanimity would even spare the murderous
mountaineer, unless, indeed, their safety, their
lives were the price of his.

So restored, indeed, were her faculties, that she
was the first to note the sudden responsive light, as
the far-reaching gleam of the lantern struck out
the glitter of calc-spar. " See there 1 " she cried.
"What is that?"

" We are coming again to the palace, I do be-
lieve," said Frank, as if surprised.

"Wa-al," observed the surly guide, stopping
short, " warn't ye lowin' ez ye wanted ter go the
same way? I kin show ye other ways — ef so

418

The Windfall

be ye'd like ter travel 'em; a short cut ter no-
whar."

Frank was conscious of having expressed unin-
tentionally, in his surprise, his lurking suspicions,
and his answer was not readily forthcoming. But
Lloyd discriminated the note of offence in the
guide's voice, and sought to re-establish harmonious
relations.

" That is all right — just what we want to show
the lydy," he said cheerily. " But I don't call it
the marble palace," he continued, addressing him-
self directly to Lucia; " it is the * Hall of Heroes '
— you will see why directly, — and, oh, what a
stage-setting it would make."

Even now the darkness began to shimmer with
vague transient white gleams suggestive of appari-
tions, of gigantic human forms. At a word from
the guide, Frank strode ahead down a steep de-
clivity, and, pausing at last, stood in the centre of
an oval-shaped apartment, glimmering white, with
here and there a sudden crystalline sparkle. The
lofty ceiling rose above like the interior of a dome.

The mountaineer waited with the other two, as
if he felt that since Frank had usurped the lantern
he might also assume the functions of a cicerone
and exhibit the wonders of the cave. Lucia began
to realise with a sinking heart that the mountain-
eer having decoyed Lloyd here for the purpose of
wreaking now his frustrated vengeance, would not
for one moment permit himself to be separated
from his prospective victim. She once more grew

419

The Windfall

anxious lest it would be impossible to speak to
Lloyd apart, and began to scheme, to devise, rather
than await, an opportunity to warn him.

Young Laniston, placed at a disadvantage which
he had not anticipated, although he did not regret
his manoeuvre to keep possession of the precious
light on which all their lives depended, hesitated
for a moment — then he addressed himself to the
methods by which the mountaineer had earlier dis-
played to the explorers the beauties of the seques-
tered place.

He took up from the ground a long pole with a
short prong or fork at its end. He lifted the lan-
tern high on this, and like a miracle the splendours
of the underground scene burst forth. The walls
were white and sparkled with calc-spar. The
wondrous forces of nature, tirelessly building
through the ages these unseen, unimagined, weird
splendours, were still at work, and though great
stalactites hung down from the lofty roof like a
hundred chandeliers, the continual drip from these
ponderous pendants, of the waters charged with
lime, had not yet built up from the floor the stalag-
mites to form the columns in which they would
one^day meet. These stalagmites, now in process
of development, had taken on strange, fantastic
shapes. At the distance it was like a hall of glit-
tering statuary. Lloyd pointed out, with all the
zest of discovery, the similitudes which his keen
imagination had discerned in the rugged rock.
Now he discriminated a statesman-like figure,

420

The Windfall

erect upon a column, gigantic, majestic, a scroll in
his hand; here a great, rugged pedestal, where the
waters had been received in a wide depression,
supported an equestrian soldier mounted upon a
rearing charger; his fancy descried an aboriginal
group, a warrior — he was insistent on the distinct-
ness of his plumed crest — with his tomahawk up-
lifted, his victim a-crouch at his feet; he pointed
out Neptune, on the rocks, his trident in his hand,
a dolphin sporting at his feet.

Somehow, all the vanished wonders of the world
were lurking here, awaiting the magic touch of
imagination to give them form and grace and bid
them live anew. The mountaineer, impervious to
these impressions, walled up in his limitations,
seemed to listen stolidly, uncomprehendingly, as
Lloyd, discoursing all unsuspicious, all undismayed,
gaily discerned poems in the stones, and music in
the dropping of the water, for they could dis-
criminate the sound of the ripple of a rill, some-
where in the darkness, from the staccato fall of
the drops from the stalactites, building ceaselessly
the majestic architecture of the cavern.

" Listen, listen," said Lloyd smilingly, one
hand uplifted, " was there ever anything more
harmonious than that tinkling interlude with its
appoggiatura of drops that comes always a placer e
after the solemn, hesitating tones of the temaf "

The foreign phrases suggested a chance to her
despair.

" Do you speak Italian or French? " she asked.
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The Windfall

" No — nor English, either, I'm afraid. Wish I
did," Lloyd replied, looking down at her, his face
illumined in some stray shifting gleam of the
lantern. " The only consolation is that I have not
much to say anyhow. A few words will express
my thoughts."

" Say," exclaimed Frank, from the centre of the
floor of the Hall of Heroes — " it is as cold as
Greenland down here, and as damp as a marsh."

" And It goes through you, this damp cold," re-
sponded Lloyd. " It isn't like the dry cold at the
entrance of the cave." Then to Lucia, " Did you
notice how dusty it was there? "

" Well, say," exclaimed Frank, " have you seen
enough of this? "

Lloyd submitted the question to Lucia, who as-
sented with feverish eagerness. Then he shouted
to Frank, " Suppose we get a move on us. I'm
about fed up with this place."

As Frank retraced his way to rejoin the others,
the precious lantern once more dangling from his
arm, he pondered anxiously as to his next step.
He knew, partly from the position of the group,
and he thought that he could divine from the in-
tonation of Lloyd's voice, that Lucia had not been
able to exchange a word with him out of the hear-
ing of the mountaineer. Hence, he was sure that
Lloyd was still all unconscious of his danger, and
thus cut off from his advice and co-operation, young
Laniston felt peculiarly helpless, yet laden with
responsibility. While in certain traits of his ado-

422

The Windfall

lescence he represented a type of the callow under-
graduate, he had an appreciation of his own
inexperience and limitations that indeed did much
to annul them, and rendered him almost as cau-
tious as a man versed in the mutations of human
affairs. He hardly knew what to do, and hence he
was slow to act. He thought at one moment that
he would call Lloyd aside and disclose the facts,
thus bringing the matter to a crisis. But this, he
reflected, might precipitate the lurking treachery,
whatever deed it was that the man had in contem-
plation. At length he determined that, with the
shifting of the personnel of the conference, he
would call the mountaineer aside, thus giving Lucia
one moment for her whispered confidence to Lloyd.

" Come here, my friend," Frank said, stopping
short and looking straight at the guide and then
down at the light, " Come and see what is the mat-
ter with this lantern."

His face, all thrown into high relief by the light
shining upward upon it, placid, and smooth, and
roseate, gave no intimation of the unrest in his
mind, and even a suspicious man might easily
have been caught by the lure.

But the saturnine mountaineer resisted stanchly.
" Nuthin' the matter with it," he retorted. " But
I tell you now, ef ye fool with that thar lantern
an1 git it out'n fix, you will be in hell fire a good
spell 'fore yer time comes — that's whut ! "

" Look out, man — bridle your words in the
presence of this lydy — or I'll cut your tongue out,"

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The Windfall

Lloyd spoke abruptly, with such sudden fierceness
that the mountaineer started aside.

The stalwart Frank, knowing what he knew,
could have fainted at this provocation to the lurk-
ing menace. With desperate eagerness he sought
to re-establish such poor pretence of an entente
cordiale as had heretofore existed. " Have patience
with the speech of the country, Mr. Lloyd. The
thoughts of a plain man are plainly expressed, hey,
my friend? " he said jovially, clapping the guide
on the shoulder.

It was but a momentary diversion, but in that
restricted interval Lucia whispered to Lloyd, " He
is the man who attacked you in the Ferris
Wheel."

Lloyd looked surprised for a moment — startled.
Then he responded, laughing a trifle, " You must
be mistaken. The doctor thought the hurt was
from the fall — not a blow. He had no motive.
I never saw him till to-day. I haven't an enemy in
the world."

" He was in disguise," Lucia whispered.

" Oh, that, indeed." Lloyd looked down at her
with a doubting but lenient smile. " If ever I have
to go on the road again, I'll get you to write me a
play! — you are a prodigy at plots — I can see
that!"

Lucia was on the verge of collapse — fit to fall.
For the sake of this moment she had controlled her
fears, and tried to the limit her powers of en-
durance, and followed into this abyss the guidance

424

The Windfall

of a known traitor. She had risked her life in this
cavern of darkness and despair whence she might
never issue, that she might tell Lloyd that his own
life was in danger — and for naught! She could
not appeal to his fears — for to fear he seemed
impervious.

And so he thought she had come, simply because
she wanted to see the cave — the folly of it ! And
he would never know that she loved him and his
safety better than her life — and indeed why should
he know this, when she would have none of him,
and his bizarre past, and his humdrum future with
his " bit of money " and his little dingy home of a
six-room frame house on a small plantation! He
had already offered her these values — which she
had rejected, though she loved him, as she had
already told him — why should he know how
much — how much!

She hung heavily on his arm, so had the elasticity
of her gait failed her, and almost at once he no-
ticed the change.

" This is too much for you," he said consider-
ately. " You are tired. Look here, guide," he
called out peremptorily. " Get us out of here now
— the shortest way."

The mountaineer, after his sullen manner, made
no comment, but set out at once at a fair pace, pre-
ceding Frank, whom he still permitted without
protest to carry the lantern. Young Laniston, crest-
fallen and very considerably dismayed, sought to
lessen the distance between them, some twenty feet,

425

The Windfall

by spurting in a fast walk, whereupon the guide
broke into a jog trot, keeping the interval exactly
the same.

" Hold on for the light," exclaimed Frank,
realising that Lucia must needs be distressed to
keep this pace or fall hopelessly to the rear. He
relapsed into his former gait and at once the guide
relaxed his speed in exact proportion. " You had
better wait a bit," said Frank, ignoring that aught
of unpleasantness had happened; "you will fall
into a crevice if you don't mind."

He sent a shaft of light flickering on ahead, but
sullen and sinister the man made no response, still
steadily preceding them into the dense glooms, his
figure barely glimpsed by the lantern's fluctuating
light as they followed.

Frank's alarms were now very definitely excited.
He could not understand the change in the man's
policy in leaving the post which he had so stead-
fastly maintained in Lloyd's immediate proximity.
He had either relinquished his scheme or he was
now proceeding to put it into execution. Frank
was mindful too of the malignity with which the
mountaineer pointed the fact how his caution had
overshot the mark by retaining the custody of the
lantern. Much good would it do them if the guide,
evidently curiously familiar with the place, should
contrive to distance them altogether, or dodge be-
hind one of the buttresses of the cliffs of this under-
ground world, and so hiding leave them to find
their way out of this labyrinth without a clue, or

426

The Windfall

perchance, wandering in eccentric circles, perish
finally of cold or starvation. It was impossible for
them to recognise any landmark of the dread Plu-
tonian scene — black night on every side, save
dusky outlines of crags and chasms, the tiny white
focus of the lantern with its fibrous halo failing in
deep glooms, and beyond, the dim shadow of a
man, trotting steadily — how well he knew his foot-
ing ! — to lose sight of whom were certain death in
this world of Erebus.

" If I only had a pistol, even without a cartridge
in it, Td stop that light-heeled fellow," Frank said
indignantly, but in a low voice, over his shoulder
to the two who followed close upon his steps.

" Don't be frightened, Miss Laniston," Lloyd
reassured Lucia. " We shan't lose sight of our
precious guide. I could run him down in two
seconds. And if necessary I will just snatch you up
in my arms and overhaul him forthwith. I'd do it
now, but it is best to give him line, and see what
his intentions really can be."

The next moment a chilly sound rang through
the silent cave and all the unfortunate explorers
started with a nervous shock. In another instant
they recognised its character. It was the hooting
of a screech owl.

" That settles it," exclaimed Lloyd with a joy-
ous sense of relief. " That shows we can't be very
far from the outside. The owls hide about near
the entrance of a cave in the daytime — then they
fly out at night like the bats."

427

The Windfall

Lucia tried to share his hopefulness ; she looked
about with eager expectancy. " But I don't see or
hear any bats," she said.

4 They will no doubt put in an appearance be-
fore long," Lloyd answered. " There is the owl
again."

She shivered at the blood-curdling, ill-omened
cry, despite its fortunate augury to them.

The shrill, uncanny notes of the screech owl again
trembled repetitiously on the thin, rare air, then
the low, sinister chuckling of the bird ensued, so
true to life, so perfectly imitated that the cry had
been several times repeated, after considerable in-
tervals, before they perceived that they had heard
no owl — that the mountaineer now and again
paused as he hurried on in advance and standing
still mimicked the creature's ill-omened cry with a
perfection of similitude that might have deceived
the senses of more practical woodsmen than they
professed to be. The stoppage gave the explorers
time to gain on their strange guide and as the
shrilling rang out once more the source whence it
emanated became obvious.

Frank, looking over his shoulder at the others,
showed a startled, dismayed face and Lloyd with a
strange, unaccustomed thrill about his heart, felt
that a crisis impended. Their thought was the
same — they were following a madman, or he was
signalling to confederates ambushed in the hope of
booty, or he was masking the noise of their ap-
proach by this, a familiar sound.

428

The Windfall

Lucia suddenly spoke, a joyous break in her
voice that was nevertheless like a sob. " I see a
faint light in the distance — we are truly nearing
the exit." She looked up at Lloyd through tears
in her eyes. He felt her hand grow light on his
arm, her step quicken at his side — so does hope
control the nerves, the muscles.

But it was his turn to doubt. He had what is
called " a head for localities." The entrance which
he remembered had for a distance longer than the
light of day could be glimpsed a straight blank
wall on one side, without an aperture or a break,
which fact had made it possible for Frank Lanis-
ton to go and return without a guide. Whereas
here there were vast spaces of void darkness on
either side, the path was damp and slippery in
places, and he could smell the breath of running
water, and hear the vague susurrus that echoed the
murmur of its flow. There it had been as still as
death, but for the whisking of the almost noiseless
wings of the disturbed bats and now and then their
weird mouse-like cry, and dust, dust, dust, was
over all the dry precincts of the way. He suddenly
spoke his conviction. " That is undoubtedly light,"
he said, " but this is not the way by which we came
into the cave."

The guide caught the words and paused ab-
ruptly. He showed a change anew. He seemed
suddenly metamorphosed from the malignant,
tricky gnome, fleeing from them as they ap-
proached, or the madman aping the bird's cry

429

The Windfall

of evil presage as he threaded the endless laby-
rinth of this subterranean realm. He was now the
simple prosaic yokel whom, of their own free will
outside, they had hired as a guide to explore a cave
as a bit of pastime in a pastoral day.

" Waal," he remonstrated, doggedly sullen as
at first, " didn't you uns say ez ye wanted the short-
es' way out; this is the shortes' way."

" But I expected of course to go out at the same
place — I wanted the shortest way to that exit," said
Lloyd sternly. " You know that our horses are not
here."

" But only a leetle piece off," the fellow remon-
strated. A real owl began to rive the dark still
air with his keen shrilling, and anon his low tremu-
lous chatter. The guide paused to listen to the
sound and then went on. " I thought she mought
rest outside whilst I went to lead down her horse-
critter." Once more he paused to listen to the
scream of the owl. The whole place echoed and
re-echoed its sinister chuckle. " But now I kem ter
study 'bout 'n it I misdoubts it be too steep fur
she. Jes' step for'd, stranger, an' see. It be jes'
round the turn."

Before Frank could warn Lloyd, before Lucia
could utter a word of remonstrance, before Lloyd
himself took an instant's thought, he dropped
Lucia's hand from his arm and stepped around the
great buttress of the cliff, the mountaineer at his
side.

Lloyd's figure was suddenly defined in a great
430

The Windfall

glare of artificial light and what he saw the others
only knew afterward. Descent was obviously im-
practicable. Sheer down, but only some twenty-
five feet, lay a vast replica of the white cavernous
hall they had quitted, with stalactites and stalag-
mites all a-glitter; but here was habitation, move-
ment; strange, troglodytic figures, with skulking
black shadows, shifted about amongst the columns;
prosaic suggestions environed the great vats and
tubs, barrels and sacks of grain, the metallic glim-
mer of a large copper still, and the open door of a
furnace, the fire flaring to a white heat. So silent
had been the approach under the normal cavern-
ous sound of the owl's shrilling that not one of
the moonshiners looked up as Lloyd looked down.
Only when the guide, impatient for the catastrophe,
uttered a sharp, short call did they raise their eyes.
Lloyd, dumbfounded, instinctively stepped back-
ward, and at this moment Frank, eager with curi-
osity, flung the lantern forward as he moved, and
thus the shadow of the guide was projected from
the darkness on the floor below.

It was the boast of Shadrach Pinnott that he had
not missed his aim for thirty years. It did not fail
him now. He saw the form of a man standing at
gaze in a niche in the wall which vanished suddenly
from view; then a shadow fell from the niche
across the floor below. With a nice calculation of
the station of the figure that threw the shadow he
fired and the rocks reverberated with the sharp
crack of the rifle like the musketry of a battle, and

The Windfall

intermingled with it all were the repetitious echoes
of the death-cry of the victim.

The body of the guide, as, mortally wounded, he
fell forward, slid downward into the moonshiners'
lair. The next moment the door of the furnace
clashed and all was darkness and silence. Lloyd
and Frank, realising that the height on which they
stood and the doubt of their numbers and per-
sonality precluded pursuit for a time from the dis-
tillers on a lower level, made the best of their way
with the lantern, carrying the half-fainting Lucia
with them, toward the direction in which they had
entered, so far as their recollection might serve.
How they would have fared in their dazed and
exhausted condition, what disastrous fate might
have befallen them they often speculated afterward.
But it was not long before they heard the resonant
halloos of the searching party summoned by Jar-
dine to their rescue, and only the detail of the ex-
traordinary treachery and fate of their guide saved
them from very trenchant ridicule, in that land of
sylvan prowess, for involving themselves in a trap
whence they must needs be extricated by raising the
countryside.

43*

CHAPTER XX

MR. DALTON, hearkening profession-
ally to the adventure, took charge of
the legal aspects of the matter in the
interests of his client. He notified by telephone the
local officials of the death of the guide, and also by
the long distance wire the marshal of the district
of the probable location of the still, and in each
communication offered on the part of Lloyd and
young Laniston to be prepared to give their testi-
mony whenever it should be required.

Then, since caution is always concomitant with
conscience in a certain organisation, he proposed
that the summer sojourners should depart New
Helvetia forthwith.

' There is no use in mincing matters," he said.
" These moonshiners are very desperate men.
They may make an effort to prevent this direct and
irrefutable testimony against them from ever
reaching the ear of the authorities, Federal or local.
For a while they may not know who Mr. Lloyd
was, as he appeared judgment-wise in the niche,
like the miracle of the writing on the wall of the
palace of Belshazzar. But the rescue party will of
course spread the details far and wide through the
countryside, and the lives of both Mr. Lloyd and
Mr. Laniston might be much endangered in linger-

433

The Windfall

ing in this sequestered place. In fact this wild
region is not now safe. I am not an alarmist, but
I should recommend indeed the immediate closing
of the hotel and the departure of all the guests
from New Helvetia at this very critical juncture."

There were grave faces contemplating the glow-
ing log fire in the great chimney-place of the hotel
office as he talked. Few people relish the role of
scapegoat. The idea of becoming a sacrifice to a
possible mistake of identity for either of these for-
midable witnesses, the billet for the bullet of a
distiller's rifle fired from the ambush of the shrub-
bery of the lawn one of these dark moonless nights,
seemed far from a fitting sequel to the placid
summer pleasuring at New Helvetia. There was
also the possibility, unpleasing indeed to anticipate,
of the incendiary destruction of the hotel, with all
its guests, to make sure of the witnesses in the holo-
caust, to shield the crime of the murderous distil-
lers. The personality of the adviser went far to
commend his counsel, and the fact that the host
ardently seconded the proposition made it manifest
that the owner of the hostelry was not without fears
for his property and person. A short consultation
resulted in the resolution of the guests to quit the
place early the next morning, no one caring after
dark to encounter in addition to possible attack by
the wayside the dangers of the precipitous moun-
tainous road in the descent from the heights.

The night was already coming on, clouded and
drear; the white cumuli so gaily, racing with the

434

The Windfall

wind through the blue matutinal skies had grown
grim in heavy grey tumultuous threats of storm.
The wind was still astir amongst the tossing cumu-
lose tumult and falling weather seemed hardly yet
imminent, but when Lucia, refreshed by rest and
sleep under the influence of bromide administered
by her aunt, joined the group in the office, the
gusts were beginning to dash torrents of rain
against the great black windows, all adrip, and the
shouts of the riotous powers of the air filled the
outer voids of mountain and valley and the utter
darkness of the moonless night.

Mrs. Laniston had deemed it better when the
girl returned that afternoon from the ill-starred
jaunt, exhausted and half hysterical from fright
and horror, that as scant regard as possible should
be accorded her nervous agitation. She urged
Lucia to exert her will-power to throw off the in-
fluences of the disastrous day, even its recollection.
The evil results upon her mind and physique would
be best nullified by slipping with as slight jar as
might be into the normal routine of life.

" Think of it no more, dearest Lucia," she said
pettingly. :< Wear your prettiest gown and come
down to tea. If you lie here and brood over this
to-night, you may not to-morrow be able to quit
the subject."

But Lucia found naturally enough the theme
still rife about the fireside in the office. The ques-
tion of transportation, the problems of conveyances
and horses had already been settled, partly with the

435

The Windfall

aid of the hotel stables which were usually avail-
able only for pleasure trips, a Colbury livery es-
tablishment having the monopoly of the general
travel ; but on this occasion every vehicle and horse
at New Helvetia were brought into requisition, so
eager was the proprietor to be rid of such a source
of danger as his pleasant guests seemed now likely
to prove. An arrangement was made by telephone
by which the Colbury livery stable was to send up
additional vehicles for baggage and servants, and
the business interests thus satisfactorily concluded,
the minds and conversation of the group reverted
forthwith to the sensation of the day and the solu-
tion of details of mystery, not altogether compre-
hended in the jejune accounts that had at first
reached the hotel.

The views of Mr. Dalton, by reason of his pro-
fession and his close association with the chief actor
in the sensation, commanded much respect and
were very generally adopted.

" I take it," he was saying as Lucia entered and
Lloyd rose and offered her a chair — the lawyer
glanced up from where he was comfortably en-
sconced with his cigar in a rocking-chair before the
blazing fire, " Good-evening, Miss Laniston — I
trust you are fully recovered from the ill effects of
these unlucky excitements — I take it that the man
met the horseback party merely by accident, and
having some deep and murderous grudge against
Mr. Lloyd "

" Someone in the rescue party," interrupted
436

The Windfall

Frank, " when the body was found and identified,
was saying that his sweetheart had thrown him
over, and that he suspected that it was the influence
of her foolish admiration of Mr. Lloyd, whom
she had seen at the Street Fair, where she
danced."

" And that's arrant nonsense," Lloyd instantly
asseverated. " She did a song-and-dance turn, like
any other coryphee, and had no more consideration
for me than the Flying-lydy or the Fat lydy who
perform in their own interests."

"At all events," Mr. Dalton said, "this Eu-
gene Binley thirsted for your blood. He was un-
armed— which surprises me very much " Mr.

Dalton fitted the tips of his fingers accurately
together as he pieced out his bits of evidence
— " really surprises me. These mountaineers,
if to all appearances without weapons, usually
carry what they call a shooting iron in the leg
of their long boots. He could not kill a profes-
sional athlete like Mr. Lloyd in a fist-fight ; he could
not probably get an opportunity to push him when
off his guard into an abyss — though this is what I
think he contemplated when he refused to accom-
pany Mr. Laniston back for the ladies or to wait
alone."

;t That idea occurred to Mr. Jardine — after we
had remembered seeing the man in disguise at the
Fair and in the Ferris Wheel," said Ruth, who,
being far more phlegmatic than Lucia, and having
been tortured by fears for her relatives rather than

437

The Windfall

physical hardships and the sight of a hideous deed,
had readily recovered her equanimity when their
safety was assured. ' That's why we gave them
so little time to return before we rode off and raised
the community as we went."

" This man's plan was well laid and evidently
was evolved almost on the spur of the moment."
Mr. Dalton continued his research into the motives
of the deed. " He bethought himself that the
moonshiners would not stay their hand should a
presumable spy be detected looking in upon their
illicit still. Thus he led Mr. Lloyd to their lair
within their view. He must have had a grudge
at the moonshiners too, for he had provided him-
self in Mr. Laniston and Miss Lucia with witnesses
to the nefarious deed. What a precious shifty ras-
cal this was — committing a murder by proxy ! "

" A wonderful escape for Mr. Lloyd," said Mrs.
Laniston. " And where do you go, Mr. Lloyd,
from New Helvetia ? " She was seeking to change
the subject on Lucia's account. The young girl
was looking very pallid, though delicately lovely in
a gown of white voile over white silk. She wore
a belt of old gold brocade which had as a clasp a
fine old topaz, a bit of the antiquated jewelry that
recent fashions have caused to be delved out of
old cases and brought to light in new settings. This
had been a great brooch, and three other stones,
similar but smaller — once the ear-rings and brace-
let-clasp of the same set, — were now mounted in a
" dog-collar " of filigree gold about her delicate

438

The Windfall

neck. In her hair Lloyd noted a cluster of golden-
rod, a relic of the ride to-day.

"Where am I going?" — Lloyd repeated the
question — " as soon as I can get away from the
coroner's jury I shall go to my own house — I am
due there on the tenth at any rate."

;< To receive your cousin Mr. Thomas Jennico
Lloyd, I suppose?" said the gentleman who was
well acquainted in Glaston and who had manifested
much interest in the transformed showman.

" And his wife and his daughter, Miss Geraldine
Lloyd."

Mrs. Laniston looked bewildered. " But isn't
this rather early to go so far south? The danger
from yellow fever is by no means counteracted by
these light frosts in the upper country."

The gentleman who had connections in Glaston
surveyed her in surprise. " Why, there has never
been a case of yellow fever to originate near Glas-
ton— they feel no apprehension whatever."

" Mr. Lloyd's home place is within a few miles
of Glaston," Mr. Dalton explained.

In common with most talkative women Mrs.
Laniston could not silently await developments.
" Oh — I thought his home was near us — in Louis-
iana— beyond the bight of the bayou."

"That " said Mr. Dalton, with undis-
guised disregard, " why I understand that that plan-
tation has only a little house on it — a neglected
place, too. I think that Mr. Jennico only took it
for a debt."

439

The Windfall

" Mr. Lloyd's home-place, the old Jennico place,
near Glaston, is one of the finest country seats in
the whole South," the gentleman who knew Glas-
ton said, with almost local pride. " It is positively
baronial. I should think, Mr. Lloyd, that you
would be very happy to own it."

Lloyd smiled, his eyes on the fire. " I saw it
only once," he said.

" Yes — yes " exclaimed Mr. Dalton de-
lightedly, " the time you called on your grand-
father, Judge Lloyd, when he was visiting there.
Ah ha 1 you took no notice whatever of the plump
little gentleman reading the paper in his easy chair
in the bay window — and listening to every word.
Charles Jennico always had more curiosity than
any woman! He had intended to leave all his
property to the eldest grandson of his friend and
cousin, Judge Lloyd — this Thomas Jennico Lloyd.
' But by George, I made up my mind then that I'd
divide my estate evenly between the two grandsons,'
he told me when he gave me his instructions to
draw up his will. He said, * I wouldn't do any-
thing then; I wouldn't interfere with the young
cock's independence — I honoured him for it. But
I never saw anybody who would grace wealth better
and I made up my mind that he shouldn't eat the
bread of carefulness all his days.' And that's
how our young friend came to be the residuary
legatee and devisee.1'

The priggish gentleman, who was of the type
who grudges a fellow-creature nothing so much as

440

The Windfall

self-satisfaction, remarked with sour emphasis:
" Your Street Fair colleagues, Mr. Lloyd, will
have marvellously little trouble in advertising them-
selves with your accession to fortune. The news-
papers are beforehand with them already. You
are spread all over the New York papers," — and
he turned a sheet trembling and crackling in his
hand as he unfolded it, and read the following
flaring headline :

"A Windfall. From Mountebank to Mil-
lionaire."

Mrs. Laniston could not forbear so sharp an
exclamation of surprise that Mr. Dalton turned and
looked interrogatively at her.

;t Why — we have made no secret of it," said he.
" I mentioned that a good bit of money went with
the real estate."

" Oh," Mrs. Laniston explained, faltering and
flushing, " I had no idea that it was as much as
that." Then recovering herself as best she might
she continued, " I suppose I received that impres-
sion because I had heard you say that his grand-
father, Judge Lloyd, was so reduced in fortune."

" Judge Lloyd left nothing," said Mr. Dalton.
' This fortune comes from Charles Jennico, a very
distant relative who was a childless widower and
much attached to Judge Lloyd's family."

Lloyd's eyes were fixed discerningly upon Mrs.
Laniston for one moment, with that infrequent
sternness that was yet so definite in his face. He
wondered if the girl's course toward him to-day

441

The Windfall

had been prompted by her influence. He reflected
that Lucia had shown, — she had said indeed, —
that she loved him. And yet she would not
tolerate his suit. This he felt sure was the work
of the cautious chaperon, under the mistake that
his affluence was but a most limited competence.
Doubtless she had subtly argued, urgently con-
strained, really overwhelmed the young girl's mind
and preference, for independent and self sufficient
as Lucia affected to be she was in reality docile to
authority and in any matters of importance easily
controlled, as he could see, by the judgment of
her aunt, whom she loved and respected and
trusted.

Mrs. Laniston could not disguise her dismay
when once more Lucia and she were together in
the upper story of the hotel. The apartment
seemed bare and wintry as the storm beat upon the
resounding roof and gables of the building, and the
infinite stretches of the tempestuous clouds, above
the vast purple mountains and the untenanted val-
leys, showed in the occasional broad flashes of the
lightning through the uncurtained windows, as the
summer birds rifled their temporary nests and made
ready for their flitting on the morrow.

" Oh, Lucia, Lucia, my dear," wailed Mrs.
Laniston. " I have made such a terrible mistake 1
I have destroyed your splendid chances — for you
loved that man, and but for me you would have
married him."

And Mrs. Laniston sat on the side of the bed
442

The Windfall

in the sparsely furnished fireless summer room and
wrung her hands in wretchedness.

Lucia's face was wan and wistful as she stood
tall and slim and beautiful, in her sheer white dress
with the shimmer of the silk beneath it, against the
background of the dark window with the fluctua-
ting view of the tempestuous landscape without.
She held in her hand the golden-rod that she had
drawn from her hair and she looked like the per-
sonification of the departing joys of summer.

But she had taken strong control of her nerves
and she held it.

" You meant for the best, Aunt Dora," she
murmured. " All that you said is true — as true
now as then."

" But, oh, child, money makes such a difference
— opportunity, travel, splendid environment. The
incompatibility I feared, the bizarre influences of
his past life, his language, his opinions, his man-
ners, his lack of education would all be condoned
by the world in a man of great wealth. And, even
without it, you loved him." After a pause,
" Lucia," Mrs. Laniston pleaded tremulously,
" can't you try to lure him back. It would do no
harm to try."

" I will not," cried Lucia with sudden passion.
" I would not — for all his fortune — have him to
think that it made the difference to me."

Mrs. Laniston could not herself have at-
tained such dignity of poise, but she had a dreary
satisfaction that Lloyd could perceive no suggestion

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of change in Lucia's manner wrought by the reve-
lations of the magnitude of his windfall, no token
of relenting in the scanty association that remained
to them during the journey and the final parting.

His detention in Colbury was slight. In that
short dazzled bewildered moment when he had
looked down upon the still in the cave he had not
recognised any face or figure among the distillers.
No facts could be adduced against the Pinnott
family in connection with the moonshining evi-
dently practised in the cavern, and he was not sorry
that they should go scot free despite his suspicions.
Clotilda had obviously lost little in losing her lover,
but it was because of this he thought that she
seemed dazed and dull and dense to him when he
told her of his windfall and bestowed upon her and
the old crone and Daniel Pinnott 's wife and child
such gratuities " to remember him by " as he fan-
cied might please their taste. Then he was gone
and she heard of him never again.

Mrs. Laniston did not lose sight of him. She
was wont to scan with pangs of self-reproach the
reports of the social world in the newspapers, and
bitterly noted the fulfilment of her prophecy how
easily it might reconcile itself to peculiar antece-
dents and endowments when the wealth was com-
mensurate— and in justification of this mundane
appraisement it might be urged that the prestige
of family distinction was great also. In the short-
est imaginable interval Lloyd became noted in the
social whirl ; he was a patron of the theatre and the

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The Windfall

fine arts ; a great devotee to outdoor sports, master
of the fox-hounds, prominent in the country club
and at the horse show, and he soon grew interested
in the turf as an owner of fine racers. His attrac-
tive personality, and his inherited claims to fine
social position speedily made him a favourite in
certain high and exclusive circles. He became, so
to speak, the fashion; his traits were admired and
imitated; his sayings were repeated; his every
movement was chronicled; and when it became
bruited abroad before many months that he was
about to marry his cousin's only child, Miss
Geraldine Lloyd, his popularity rendered it a
matter of very general satisfaction that the great
Jennico fortune, which had been divided in his be-
half, was once more to become a single interest to
his further advantage.

When this news came to Louisiana Lucia Lanis-
ton was moved to take her way in a solitary walk
down toward his little neglected plantation which
she knew lay beyond the bight of the bayou near the
swamp. The narrow path kept the summit of the
levee along the Mississippi River, the great em-
bankment covered with the thick mat of the Ber-
muda grass, — the still, deserted plantation fields on
one side, the crisp sere stalks flaunting here and
there a flocculent lock, " dog-tail " as the un-
gathered remnant of the cotton is called, and on
the other side shining pools, where the encroaching
river was creeping up into the area of the " no
man's land " between the protective levee and the

445,

The Windfall

treacherous current. A lonely region this; she met
no living creature, and as she, herself, swiftly
walked along the embankment, her tall slim figure
in her gray cloth dress with her gray chinchilla
furs — the only note of vivid colour being the red
wing with the grey ostrich plume in her hat — might
have been visible a long way off, had there been
any observer in view. When she quitted this
path she followed the quiet country road, along
its many windings to Lloyd's little plantation, a pil-
grimage of final farewell to a cherished thought,
and stood at the padlocked gate, and looked long
at the little humble unpainted house, which was
without a tenant now. The soft bland air of the
Southern winter was about her; the sheen of the
sunlight had a glister like spring ; the eternal green
of the hedges of the Cherokee rose and the never-
dying foliage of the live oak above the roof aided
the illusion. She had never regretted his millions,
but looking over the gate locked against her, she
saw herself as once heretofore rocking in her chair
on the porch of his house, and again, with blowsy
hair and red cheeks, planting lily bulbs in the high
turfed flower-beds of fantastic shape, and she knew
that she had had then as now a vision of happiness.
So definitely was Lloyd present to her thoughts
that as she turned and saw him standing on the
border of Bermuda grass that fringed the road, she
did not start with an appreciation of the reality of
the apparition, — it affected her only as the con-
tinuity of her dream. It was indeed the surprise

446

The Windfall

in his face, the embarrassment of his manner, the
searching questioning look beginning to grow intent
in his eyes as he lifted his hat that brought her
suddenly to the recognition of the facts of the
moment.

" You are not surprised to see me here," he
said, ill at ease, flushing, consciously malapropos,
— it was as if presumptuously recognising the fact
that he must have been predominant in her mind
at the moment.

" I was thinking of you." She regained her self-
possession by a mighty effort, as she offered her
hand. " We have heard the news. I am glad to
have an early opportunity to congratulate you."

His mobile eyebrows went up at an acute angle
of amazement. " Oh," he said at length, as if sud-
denly bethinking himself, " that happy man's name
is * Boyd ' — not Lloyd. The similarity is giving
us no end of confusion, — the gossips are all off the
track. No, no," he added, " for myself I have
nothing more serious on hand than a cruise in the
Gulf, — my yacht is lying-to for supplies across the
bend." He turned and glanced out at the great
Mississippi, at high water resembling some vast
lake, it stretched out so far, and the vermilion
sphere of the sun, slowly sinking, made a great
sheen of red glister on its murky rippling expanse.
They could both see the smoke rising from the
funnel of a yacht lying below the point where a
fringe of pecan trees cut off the view, and a noisy
bevy of green parroquets flitted in and out in search

447

The Windfall

of nuts. " It struck my fancy, while waiting, to
come ashore and view my possessions here."

He had thrust his hat back on his head and she
winced as his look of critical, supercilious dispar-
agement wandered cynically about the dreary,
shabby, neglected little farm-house.

" So this is the palatial home which you thought
I had done you the honour to offer to you,*' he said,
smiling ironically.

" Oh, don't — don't guy it," — she cried with a
sharp accent of pain, remembering her visions.

She had not kept the control of her nerves; she
was consciously embarrassed and flushing painfully.
She felt his intent eyes on her face, and she averted
her own and looked up at the sunset aglow on the
tiny panes of the blurred cheap glass of the
windows.

" You thought little enough of it once," he said
hardily, — he had acquired an assurance, doubtless
through much adulation, which kept him from the
fear of misapprehension, — " even after you had
learned that it was not to be a home of poverty, —
yes, indeed," he continued with an accession of bit-
terness, " you took pains to convince me that even
wealth was powerless to commend me. I am not
sensitive — but there was no need to turn and turn
the knife in the wound."

He gave a short, angry sigh. " Well, — it is all
over. I never meant to persecute you with my
protestations again. I knew then that Mrs. Lan-
iston urged you to reconsider, — that she would

448

The Windfall

leave no stone unturned. I never expected to see
you again, — and yet it is a melancholy pleasure," —
he looked at her with a sad smile in his eyes, —
" and I take it mighty kindly of you that you don't
deride the little place that you thought was the
home I offered you.11

" I love it," she cried with a gush of tears. " I
have never regretted it but once, — and that was
every moment and all the time, since I let a word
of counsel, — a well meant word though it was," —
she hastily stipulated, " close its doors upon me."

He was at her side in a moment. " Then tell
me why — why were you afterward so cold, so
silent, avoiding even a casual glance ? "

" Lest you might think that the discovery, —
the wealth," — she faltered.

" Don't put that into words," he interpolated
sternly. " I will not forgive you even an imagi-
nary aspersion of your motives."

They had turned away from the padlocked gate,
but they were together and there was no shadow of
misunderstanding between them. As they took
their way up the embankment of the levee in
the direction of her aunt's house, revolving their
plans for the future, Lucia glanced over her
shoulder, then turned and with her wonted airy
grace she kissed her hand to the dingy little cottage,
so sombre and meagre beneath the gorgeous sunset
sky.

" Au revoir, little home," she cried, her voice
ringing out joyously in the silence, " I shall set

449

'The Windfall

up my staff here for a time at least. It is the
trysting-place of Happiness, and all its dreams

come true."

For she had romantically stipulated that their
honeymoon should be passed here, where she had
seen herself in visions so simply happy.

Lloyd looked at her, his eyes shining with a new
glow. Then he, too, fervently kissed his hand to-
ward the cottage and echoed her words.

" Au revoir" he said, " a low lintel, but that
door will be the portal of Paradise.'*

THE END

450

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PS Murfree, Mary Noailles

2^5^ The windfall

W6

1907